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THE   GENESIS  AND   GROWTH 
OF  RELIGION 


THE 


GENESIS  AND  GEOWTH  or  RELIGION 


THE   L.    P.    STONE   LECTURES   FOR    1892,   AT 

PRINCETON  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY, 

NEW  JERSEY. 


BY 

THE  REV.  S.  H.  KELLOGG,  D.D. 

OF  TORONTO,'  CANADA 

AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  LIGHT  OF  ASIA  AND  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD, 

"A  GRAMMAR  OF  THE  HIKDI  LANGUAGE  AND 

DIALECTS,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


gorfc 
MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 

AND     LONDON 

1892 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1892, 
BY  MACMILLAN  &  CO. 


TYPOGRAPHY  BY  J.  S.  GUSHING  &  Co.,  BOSTON,  U.S. A, 
PRESSWORK  BY  BERWICK  &  SMITH,  BOSTON,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE. 


THE  Lectures  herewith  presented  to  the  public 
were  delivered  in  February,  1892,  by  invitation  of 
the  Faculty  of  the  Theological  Seminary  in  Prince- 
ton, New  Jersey,  to  the  students  of  that  institution ; 
and  constitute  the  "L.  P.  Stone  Course"  for  that 
year. 

The  limitation  imposed  by  the  terms  of  the  L.  P. 
Stone  endowment,  that  the  lectures  of  the  course 
shall  not  exceed  eight  in  number,  made  it  impossible 
to  attempt  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  question 
of  the  origin  and  growth  of  religion.  Hence  it 
seemed  best  to  confine  the  course  to  a  brief  con- 
sideration of  those  theories  regarding  this  subject, 
which  appear  at  present  to  have  the  most  extensive 
influence  among  those  with  whom  the  students  in 
our  theological  schools  are  likely  to  have  most  to  do ; 
and,  in  the  constructive  part  of  the  argument,  to 
present  chiefly  such  facts  and  considerations  as 
appeared  likely  to  be  of  most  practical  service  to 
ministers  and  intelligent  laymen,  for  the  defence  and 

V 

371514 


VI  PREFACE. 

confirmation  of  the  teachings  of  Holy  Scripture 
regarding  the  beginning  and  subsequent  develop- 
ment of  the  religious  life  of  man. 

It  may  properly  be  remarked  that  Lectures  III. 
and  IV.  are  based  upon  articles  of  the  author  in 
review  of  the  theories  of  Professor  Max  Miiller  and 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  which  were  published  a  few 
years  ago  in  the  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  Oberlin,  Ohio ; 
but  have  been  prepared  in  the  light  of  and  with 
reference  to  the  most  recent  published  works  of 
the  authors  reviewed. 

The  Lectures  are  now  published  in  the  hope  that 
they  may  be  helpful  to  many  more  than  the  students 
for  whom  they  were  originally  prepared. 

S.  H.  KELLOGG. 
TORONTO,  CANADA, 

August,  1892. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS. 

LECTURE   I. 
WHAT  is  RELIGION? 

PAGES 

Origin  and  growth  of  religion;  importance  and  difficulty 
of  the  question  —  Difficulty  of  defining  religion  ;  must 
include  atheistic  faiths  —  Definitions  of  Spinoza,  Kant, 
Fichte,  Reville,  Flint ;  of  Feuerbach,  Gruppe  —  Defini- 
tions grounding  religion  in  feeling,  as  of  Goethe, 
Teichmuller,  Schleiermacher — Religion  not  a  mere 
sense  of  dependence  —  Definitions-  centring  religion  in 
the  will,  as  of  Hegel,  Caird  —  Max  Miiller's  definition 
criticised  —  Definition  assumed  in  these  lectures ;  re- 
lates religion  to  the  intellect;  the  emotions;  the  will 
—  Justification  of  the  definition 1-27 

LECTURE  II. 

RELIGION  AND  NATURAL  DESCENT.     FETISHISM  AND 
ANIMISM. 

Naturalistic  theories  of  origin  of  religion  commonly  assume 
origin  of  man  by  mere  natural  descent ;  necessitates 
denial  of  primitive  monotheism  —  The  assumption  not 
justifiable  —  Testimony  of  Yirchow  ;  of  A.  R.  Wallace  — 
Proof  of  origin  by  descent  not  proof  of  origin  by  descent 
alone  —  A.  R.  Wallace  again  —  Bearing  of  question  on 

vii 


Vlll  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

origin  of  religion  —  Fetishism  and  animism  defined  — 
Tiele's  theory;  primitive  man  regarded  nature  as  living 

—  Would  not  account  for  fetish-worship,  only  for  ani- 
mism —  Tiele's   argument  criticised  —  Low  intellectual 
capacity  of  primitive  man  unproved  —  Facts  against  this 

—  Modern   savages   not   primitive   types  —  Proof   from 
their  languages  —  Admissions  of  Max  Miiller ;   of  Her- 
bert Spencer  —  Belief  in  a  personal  God  coexists  with 
animism  and  fetishism  —  Sir  John  Lubbock's  mistake  — 
Degree  of  religious  development  not  conditioned  by  de- 
gree of  civilization  —  Fetishism  and  animism  not  most 
common  among  most  ancient  peoples  ;  e.g.,  China,  India, 
Egypt  —  Ideas  of  God,  responsibility,  sin,  not  derivable 
from  animism  or  fetishism   .  28-63 


LECTURE    III. 
HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY. 

Ancestor-worship  the  earliest  form  of  religion  —  Belief  in 
spirit  and  its  survival  after  death  to  be  accounted  for  — 
Mr.  Spencer's  explanation  —  Primitive  man  observed 
that  some  things  had  a  visible  and  invisible  state ;  might 
change  their  substance,  and  form  ;  hence  inferred  a  double 
of  himself  and  all  things  —  This  confirmed  by  dreams, 
especially  of  the  dead ;  whence  survival  of  soul  inferred ; 
and  post  mortem  reward  and  retribution  —  Idea  of  God 
evolved  from  idea  of  a  ghost  —  The  theory  applied  to 
fetish-worship;  to  nature- worship  —  Mr.  Spencer's  ad- 
mission ;  modern  savages  not  primitive,  but  degraded 
men  —  A  dilemma  ;  facts  versus  theory  —  Mr.  Spencer's 
a  priori  primitive  man;  a  petitio  principii — His  theory 
denies  innate  ideas;  inadequate  to  account  for  phenomena 
of  sin ;  for  whole  content  of  idea  of  God ;  as  Cause ; 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGES 

Moral  Governor;  as  offended  with  man  —  Ancestor- 
worship  not  most  common  among  lowest  races  —  Idea 
of  God  coexists  with  ancestor-worship  ;  no  proof  that  the 
latter  was  derived  from  the  former;  witness  China,  India, 
Egypt  —  Mr.  Spencer's  argument  from  names  for  God ; 
not  sustained  by  facts  —  His  appeal  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment—  Conclusion 64-109 


LECTURE    IV. 

PROFESSOR  MAX  MULLER'S  THEORY  OF  THE  ORIGIN  OF 
RELIGION. 

Professor  Max  Miiller's  attitude  toward  Christianity  and  the 
Scripture  records  —  Makes  religion  to  beginning  with 
sense-perception  of  the  infinite  —  Classification  of  sense- 
percepts  ;  tangible,  semi-tangible,  intangible ;  the  last- 
named  the  earliest  deities  —  Primitive  Indo- Aryan  religion 
—  Progress  from  henotheism  to  monotheism  —  Origin  of 
religion  explained  by  the  origin  of  language  —  His  argu- 
ment based  on  erroneous  definition  of  the  infinite ;  on 
sensationalist  philosophy  —  Senses  cannot  give  idea  of 
the  infinite  —  Idea  of  moral  obligation  not  derivable  from 
observation  of  physical  order  —  Sense-perception  cannot 
originate  idea  of  cause;  of  God  as  Moral  Governor;  of 
responsibility,  sin,  and  guilt  —  Argument  from  history  of 
Indo-Aryan  religion  inconclusive  —  Indo-Aryan  religion 
not  primitive  —  Order  of  religious  development  in  India 
not  as  required  by  his  theory  —  Recognition  of  a  "  Heaven- 
Father  "  earliest — "Henotheism,"  the  first  step  in 
religious  declension  —  Terminus  of  Indian  development 
pantheism  —  Pantheism  confounded  with  monotheism  — 
Significant  Hindoo  appreciation  of  Professor  Max 
Miiller's  Lectures  on  Religion 110-150 


X  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  V. 
THE  TRUE  GENESIS  OF  RELIGION. 

PAGES 

Two  factors  in  genesis  of  religion  —  The  Subjective  factor  : 
the  constitution  of  man's  nature  —  Man  has  by  nature  a 
religious  faculty  —  Proof  in  the  universality  of  religion 

—  Universal  sense  of  dependence  on  an  invisible  Power 

—  Laws   of    thought   compel    belief    in    unconditioned 
Being  —  Conscience  constrains  belief  in  a  moral  Power 
above  man  —  In  all  this  man   contrasted  with  highest 
brutes  —  Objection :   Many  races  without  religion  —  Pre- 
sumption  against  correctness  of    this   assertion  ;   often 
based  on  narrow  definition  of  religion  —  Religious  beliefs 
of  savages  difficult  to  discover — Assertion  of  races  with- 
out religion   often   disproved   after  full  information  — 
Objection:   Many  individual  atheists  —  Exceptions  to  a 
law  do  not  warrant  denial  of  a  law  —  The  Objective  factor 
in  genesis  of  religion  :    a  revelation  of  God  —  Proof  of 
such  a  revelation  —  Religious  beliefs,  spontaneous,  univer- 
sal, intensely  strong,  persistent  —  This  not  disproved,  but 
confirmed   by  history   of  Buddhism ;    unaccountable  if 
no   revelation  —  Denial  of  revelation   logically  involves 
universal  nescience  —  Revelation  of  God  in  conscience ; 
in  the  mind  ;  in  the  universe  of  matter  and  mind  —  Ad- 
mission of  Reville —  Recapitulation 151-181 

LECTURE    VI. 
THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION.      SIN  AS  A  FACTOR. 

Development  in  religion ;  not  inconsistent  with  super- 
naturalism —  Primitive  religion  elementary — Reville's 
misunderstanding  of  Christian  belief  on  this  point  —  The 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS,  XI 

PAGES 

elementary  not  necessarily  erroneous  —  Has  monotheism 
been  the  beginning  or  the  terminus  of  the  development  ? 

—  Xo  "  idle  question  "  —  Reville's  assertion ;  "  polytheism 
original" — Is  this  true?  —  Order  of  development  from 
beginning  not  ascertainable  historically — The  order  in 
historic  times   presumably  that  of  prehistoric  times  — 
Argument  from  antecedent  probability  applied  —  Signifi- 
cance of  phenomena  of  sin  —  Mistaken  assumption  that 
religious  development  has  been  normal ;  hence  religious 
progress  must  have  been  the  law  —  Reville's  assumption 

—  Sin  involves  consciousness  of  the  morally  abnormal  — 
This  assumed  in  all  religions  ;  a  potent  factor  in  their 
development;  unscientific  to  ignore  this — Sin  involves 
religious  degradation  ;  by  dulling  conscience  ;  by  causing 
dread  of   God;    as  involving  desire  of  what  moral  law 
forbids  —  Hence  false  conceptions  of  Deity ;  predisposition 
toward  atheism,  agnosticism,  pantheism  —  Influence   of 
pantheism  ;  diminishes  sinner's  few  by  denying  holiness 
of  God ;  His  personality  and  moral  government ;  makes 
sin  a  necessary  stage  in  evolution  —  Influence  of  polythe- 
ism;   lowers  ideal  of   God;  therewith  lessens    sense   of 
moral  antagonism  between  man  and  God  —  Xo  tendency 
in  sin  to  self-improvement,  but  the  reverse  ;  hence,  that 
man,  as  sinful,  should  have  ever  tended  by  nature  to 
religious  elevation,  impossible 182-202 

LECTURE  VII. 

HISTORIC  FACTS  REGARDING  THE  ORDER  OF  RELIGIOUS 
DEVELOPMENT. 

Coexistent  polytheism  and  monotheism  of  ancient  Egypt 

—  Monotheism   most  prevalent   at  first;    testimony  of 
Rouge  and  Reville  —  Egyptian  degradation  of  religion  — 


Xll  TABLE    OF    CONTENTS. 

PAGES 

Earliest  deities  of  Indo-Aryans —  "  Henotheisiii  "  — 
Vedic  monotheism — Development  of  pantheism;  the 
Upanishads;  the  "Six  Systems";  triumph  of  Vedantic 
pantheism  —  Modern  Puranic  Hindooism  —  Failure  of 
attempts  at  reform  —  No  development  of  monotheism 
in  India  —  Hindoo  testimony  —  Zoroastrianism  —  Rela- 
tion to  Vedic  nature- worship  —  Persian  dualism  not 
primitive  —  The  monotheism  of  the  Gathas  —  Zoroaster 
preached  monotheism  to  idolaters  —  Development  of 
Persian  dualism  —  Modern  Parseeism  —  Religion  of  primi- 
tive Babylonians  —  The  "  Magical  Texts  "  —  The  "  Peni- 
tential Psalms  "  —  Growth  of  nature-worship  —  Shemitic 
influence  —  Philosophic  speculations  —  No  tendency  to 
monotheism  —  Chinese  religion  —  Worship  of  heaven  and 
earth ;  of  ancestors  —  Professor  Legge's  views  —  Religious 
attitude  of  Confucius  ;  of  Lao  Tze  —  Religious  beliefs  of 
savage  peoples  —  The  Santalis ;  the  Kolhs  ;  the  Aimares  ; 
West  African  negroes;, American  Indians — No  Indo- 
Germanic  or  Turanian  people  has  ever  shown  a  native 
tendency  to  monotheism  —  Inference  as  to  primitive  form 
of  religion 203-247 

LECTURE   VIII. 
SHEMITIC  MONOTHEISM.    CONCLUSION. 

Asserted  exception  to  the  law  of  religious  degeneration  — 
The  Shemitic  race  —  All  existing  monotheism  of  Shemitic 
origin  —  "  Monotheistic  genius  "  of  Shemites ;  Renan's 
assertion  —  "  Did  Israel  produce  the  one  God,  or  did  the 
one  God  produce  Israel?"  —  Original  Shemitic  con- 
ceptions of  God;  superior  to  those  of  most  peoples; 
illustrated  by  names  for  God  —  Exceptions ;  the 
Egyptians ;  Bactrians  —  Religious  degeneration  of 


TABLE    OF    CONTENTS.  Xlll 

PAGES 

Euphrates  Shemites  —  Primitive  Arabian  Sabeism ;  later 
worship  of  trees  and  stones  —  Mohammed's  concessions 
to  Arabian  idolatry  —  Alleged  Hebrew  evolution  of 
monotheism  —  Hebrew  records  affirm  a  universal  tendency 
to  forsake  the  one  God  —  Patriarchal  times — Israel  in 
Egypt;  in  the  wilderness ;  under  the  judges;  under  the 
kings  —  Total  lapse  of  the  ten  tribes  —  Hebrew  monothe- 
ism since  Babylonian  captivity ;  cannot  be  explained  as  a 
natural  development ;  was  in  spite  of  natural  tendencies 
—  Recapitulation  —  Facts  irreconcilable  with  supposition 
of  a  gradual  evolution  of  monotheism  from  some  other 
form  of  religious  belief  —  Relation  of  historical  monothe- 
ism to  supernatural  revelation —  Conclusion  .  .  .  248-275 


THE      , 

GENESIS  AND  GEOWTH  OF  KELIGION, 

LECTURE   I. 

WHAT   IS   KELIGION? 

THAT  the  question  of  the  origin  of  religion 
is  of  fundamental  importance  will  be  evident 
to  any  one  who  considers  how  profoundly  and 
extensively  the  religious  beliefs  and  practices 
of  men  have  affected  the  historical  development 
of  the  race.  One  may  be  a  total  disbeliever 
in  religion,  regarding  it  in  all  its  forms  as  a 
baseless  superstition,  always  evidencing  a  de- 
gree of  intellectual  immaturity  or  imbecility ; 
yet  the  fact  still  remains  of  the  almost  uni- 
versal prevalence  of  religion  in  all  ages,  and 
of  the  mighty  influence  which  religious  beliefs 
have  had,  both  on  individual  conduct  and  on 

the  history  of  mankind.      Hence  the   question 
B  1 


2  GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    KEL1G1ON. 

as  to  the  origin  of  religion  has  ever  been  one 
of  the  greatest  interest  to  every  thoughtful  and 
philosophic  mind. 

But  the  problem  of  ascertaining  the  genesis 
of  religion,  if  approached  only  from  the  his- 
toric side,  has  proved  one  of  the  greatest  diffi- 
culty. For  the  history  of  no  nation  reaches 
back  to  a  point  anywhere  near  the  absolute 
beginning,  either  of  religion,  or  of  the  human 
race.  The  earliest  records  show  us  religion 
prevailing  in  very  early  times  as  now ;  but 
those  most  ancient  times  are  still  far  this  side 
the  beginning  of  religion,  or  of  human  life. 
Evidently  the  solution  of  the  problem  must  be 
sought  in  some  other  way.  Historic  investiga- 
tion will  no  doubt  be  useful,  and  is,  indeed, 
indispensable  in  its  place,  but  alone  it  will 
not  suffice. 

Before  entering  upon  any  examination  of 
certain  theories  which  have  been  proposed  to 
account  for  the  existence  of  religion,  it  is  nec- 
essary, first  of  all,  in  order  to  clear  thinking, 
to  determine  precisely  what  we  are  to  under- 
stand by  this  term,  "  religion."  The  definition 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION?  3 

of  such  a  familiar  word  might,  at  first,  seem 
a  sufficiently  easy  matter;  but  it  is  evident, 
from  the  great  number  and  diversity  of  the 
definitions  which  have  been  given,  that  practi- 
cally it  has  been  found  very  difficult.  Nor, 
when  we  observe  how  very  numerous  and  how 
exceedingly  diverse  have  been  the  manifesta- 
tions of  religion,  can  one  wonder  that  to  find 
a  definition  which  should  comprehend  all  these, 
has  proved  so  hard.  Most  would  doubtless  say, 
at  first,  that  religion  certainly  has  to  do  with 
a  man's  relation  to  God,  and  would  not  object, 
perhaps,  to  such  a  definition  as  that  of  Seneca : 
"  Cognoscere  Deum  et  imitari " ;  or,  in  modern 
times,  that  of  Mr.  Martineau,  namely :  "  A 
belief  in  an  ever-living  God,  i.e.  a  Divine  Mind 
and  Will  ruling  the  universe,  and  holding 
moral  relations  with  mankind  "  ;  or,  again,  that 
of  Professor  Flint :  "  Religion  is  man's  belief  in 
a  Being,  or  beings,  mightier  than  himself,  and 
inaccessible  to  his  senses,  but  not  indifferent 
to  his  sentiments  and  actions,  with  the  feelings 
and  practices  which  flow  from  such  belief." 
It  is  an  excellence  of  this  last  definition  that 


4  GENESIS    AND    GKOWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

it  fully  recognises  the  fact  that  religion  is 
a  complex  experience,  affecting  man's  whole 
nature,  as  a  rational  and  moral  agent,  his 
intellect,  emotions,  and  will.  We  must,  how- 
ever, regard  this,  in  common  with  the  other 
definitions  mentioned,  as  open  to  the  very 
serious  objection,  that  inasmuch  as  it  assumes 
the  existence  of  a  God  or  gods,  it  thereby 
excludes  certain  systems  of  belief  and  practice, 
universally  regarded  as  religions,  which  yet 
ignore  or  deny  the  being  of  a  God.  Of  such, 
the  chief  illustration,  of  course,  is  Buddhism. 
For  by  this  time  it  should  be  regarded  as  finally 
demonstrated  that  such  scholars  as  Professors 
Max  Miiller  and  Oldenberg,  Sir  Monier  Monier- 
Williams,  Rhys  Davids,  and  others  are  right 
when  they  assure  us  that  the  original  orthodox 
Buddhism,  if  it  did  not  formally  deny,  yet 
utterly  declined  to  recognise  in  any  way  the 
existence  of  a  God,  in  any  sense  of  that  term. 
If  not  dogmatically  atheistic,  yet  the  whole 
original  Buddhist  system  of  doctrine  and 
practice  was  so  completely  independent  of  any 
reference  to  a  God,  whether  personal  or  imper- 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION?  5 

sonal,  that  if  one  could  conceive  that  atheism 
should  be  finally  demonstrated,  not  a  proposi- 
tion or  a  law  in  Buddhism  would  require  on 
that  account  to  be  in  the  least  modified.  And 
yet,  with  practical  unanimity,  it  is  agreed  that 
Buddhism  must  be  accounted  a  religion ;  a 
fact  which  is  the  more  significant  that  it  is  also 
among  the  most  widely  accepted  of  all  religions. 
It  has  been  indeed  rejoined  to  this,  that 
Buddhism,  nevertheless,  however  inconsistently, 
does  recognise  the  being  of  a  God.  It  is  a 
fact  that  the  Buddha  himself  is  worshipped  by 
many  as  a  God;  and  that f even  in  the  earliest 
Buddhist  authorities,  the  existence  of  the  gods 
of  Hindooism  is  taken  for  granted.  As  for  the 
deification  of  the  Buddha,  however,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  this  did  not  belong  to  the 
original  Buddhism,  but  is  a  very  late  develop- 
ment, which  is  even  yet  confined  to  the 
Northern  school  of  Buddhism.  The  fact  is 
indeed  of  great  significance,  in  that  it  shows 
how  impossible  it  is  for  a  man  to  rest  in  a 
religion  which  does  not  present  to  him  a 
personal  object  of  worship ;  but  shall  we 


6  GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

therefore  venture  to  say  that  until  the  Buddha 
was  deified  there  was,  properly  speaking,  no 
Buddhist  religion  ?  As  for  the  recognition  of 
the  gods  of  the  Hindoo  pantheon,  which  we  find 
in  the  primitive  Buddhism,  their  position  in 
Buddhism  is  so  different  from  that  which  they 
have  in  Hindooism,  that  practically  they  retain 
but  the  name.  The  idea  of  the  dependence  of 
man  upon  the  real  or  imaginary  beings  regarded 
as  gods,  which  is  essential  to  the  conception  of 
deity,  and  is  found  in  all  polytheistic  religions, 
is  absent  from  the  Buddhist  conception  of  the 
gods  and  their  relation  to  man.  The  gods 
themselves  might  all  be  left  out  of  Buddhism, 
and  its  general  character  would  not  thereby  be 
affected.  We  must  therefore  still  insist  that 
while  Buddhism,  by  general  consent,  is  judged 
to  be  a  religion,  it  is  yet  wholly  destitute  of  any 
recognition  of  a  God,  or  of  gods,  as  standing  in 
any  necessary  relation  to  mankind. 

But  if  we  must  then  reject  the  definitions 
above  specially  mentioned,  as  too  narrow,  because 
excluding  by  their  terms  such  a  widely  accepted 
religion  as  this,  we  must  reject  also  all  others, 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  f  7 

which,  in  like  manner,  either  explicitly  or  im- 
plicitly, assume  the  recognition  of  a  Deity,  or 
of  deities,  as  essential  to  religion.  Such,  for 
example,  is  that  of  Spinoza,  that  "  religion  is 
the  love  of  God,  founded  on  a  knowledge  of  his 
Divine  perfections " ;  or  that  of  Kant,  that 
religion  essentially  consists  in  "  the  recognition 
of  our  duties  as  Divine  commandments  "  ;  or  the 
closely  similar  definition  of  Fichte,  that  religion 
"  is  conscious  morality ;  a  morality  which,  in 
virtue  of  that  consciousness,  is  mindful  of  its 
origin  from  God  ";  or,  among  the  latest,  that  of 
Professor  Reville,  that  "  religion  is  the  deter- 
mination of  human  life  by  the  sentiment  of  a 
bond  uniting  the  human  mind  to  that  myste- 
rious Mind  whose  domination  of  the  world  and 
of  itself  it  recognises,  and  to  whom  it  delights 
in  feeling  itself  united."  But  in  the  orthodox 
Buddhism  there  is  no  recognition  of  a  Divine 
Being  who  could  give  commandments,  or  whose 
will  could  be  the  origin  of  morality;  and 
whereas  the  definition  of  Reville  assumes  both 
the  existence  of  the  human  mind  as  distinct 
from  the  body,  as  also  of  a  superior  Mind, 


8  GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

manifest  in  the  world,  Buddhism,  formally  and 
in  explicit  terms,  refuses  to  admit  the  existence 
of  either. 

Without  multiplying  illustrations  of  definitions 
of  this  class,  we  may  now  glance  at  others 
which  err  in  the  opposite  direction.  Among 
the  most  extreme  is  that  of  Feuerbach,  that 
religion  is  " man's  worship  of  himself  idealised"; 
the  gods  are  "  nothing  but  the  wishes  of  men 
conceived  as  realised."  The  essence,  therefore, 
of  religion,  consists  in  selfish  desire.  This 
thought  has  been  elaborated  by  the  positivist 
Gruppe,  whose  view^s  have  been  set  forth  and 

% 

effectively  criticised  by  Professor  Max  Miiller  in 
his  "  Natural  Religion."  l  Religious  belief  is  "a 
doctrine  professing  to  be  able  to  produce  union 
with  a  Being  or  the  attainment  of  a  state 
wrhich,  properly  speaking,  lies  beyond  the  sphere 
of  human  striving  and  attainment."  Not  only 
does  Gruppe  deny  the  universality  of  religion, 
and  therefore  its  necessity  in  some  form,  but  he 
ventures  to  maintain  the  astounding  proposition 
that  religion  is  a  comparatively  recent  invention. 

1  Op.  cit.  pp.  74-80. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION?  9 

Despite  modern  discoveries  in  Assyriology  and 
Egyptology,  lie  doubts  if  the  existence  of 
religion  can  be  proven  for  any  period  earlier 
than  1000  B.C.  He  supposes  religion  to  have 
been  an  invention  of  some  one,  and  its  so  general 
acceptance  to  have  been  due  to  three  causes, 
namely :  "  the  unconscious  vanity  of  its  founders, 
a  belief  in  the  happiness  which  it  procures  to  its 
believers,  and  the  substantial  advantages  which 
society  derives  from  it." 

To  this  theory  that  religion  is  in  the  last 
analysis  a  form  of  selfishness,  we  may  reply 
that  so  to  regard  it,  is  to  set  at  defiance  alike 
the  general  testimony  of  human  consciousness 
and  the  most  manifest  facts  of  history.  The 
religion  of  millions  is  directly  opposed  to  their 
selfishness,  which  it  constantly  condemns.  Re- 
ligion has,  in  fact,  been  the  chief  spring  of 
whatever  of  unselfishness  has  brightened  the 
history  of  our  race.  Nor  even  were  the  contrary 
assertion  conceded,  would  it  yet  be  explained 
how,  even  so,  religion  should  have  secured  such 
universal  acceptance.  A  man  may  be  selfish  in 
the  highest  degree,  but  he  is  not  on  that  ac- 


10         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

count  able  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  anything 
and  everything  which  for  selfish  reasons  he  may 
regard  as  desirable.  Surely  there  must  have 
been  some  reason  besides  human  selfishness  for 
the  so  extensive  acceptance  of  religion. 

Many  philosophers  and  theologians  have  made 
religion  to  consist  in  desire,  or  feeling.  So  the 
author  of  "Natural  Religion"  defines  religion  as 
"a  habitual  and  permanent  feeling  of  admira- 
tion"; Mill,  as  a  "craving  for  an  ideal  object"; 
Goethe,  as  "  a  feeling  of  reverence  for  what  is 
above,  around,  and  what  is  beneath  us."  Teich- 
miiller  makes  religion  to  consist  of  feelings  of 
fear,  of  aesthetic  feelings,  such  as  admiration  for 
the  beautiful,  and  of  moral  feelings. 

Among  definitions  of  this  class,  most  impor- 
tant and  influential,  probably,  has  been  that  of 
Schleiermacher,  who  says  that  religion  "  consid- 
ered simply  in  itself,  is  neither  a  knowing  or  a 
doing,  but  a  determination  of  the  feelings."1 
That  which  distinguishes  the  religious  feeling 
from  all  other  feelings  is  said  to  be  this,  that 
"  we  are  conscious  of  ourselves  as  absolutely 

1  "Der  Christliche  Glaube,"  5te  Ausg.,  S.  6. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  ?  11 

dependent."  *  It  should  be  well  understood  that 
Schleiermacher  did  not  by  these  words  intend 
to  exclude  either  knowledge  or  action  from 
religion,  but  only  to  deny  that  the  essence  of 
religion  consisted  in  either  of  these.  He  argues 
that  religion  cannot  consist  in  knowing,  else 
the  man  who  knows  most  would  be  the  most 
religious ; 2  neither  in  action,  else  the  religious- 
ness of  an  action  would  be  determined  by  its 
own  inherent  character,  as  bad  or  good,  as 
significant  or  absurd ;  but  actions  of  every 
variety,  the  best  and  the  worst,  the  most 
significant,  and  the  most  silly  and  absurd,  are 
recognised  by  some  as  religious ;  whence  he 
infers  that  the  religiousness  of  any  act  must  be 
determined,  not  by  its  own  essential  character, 
but  by  the  feeling  of  which  it  is  the  expression.3 
It  is  to  be  admitted  that  this  well-known  defi- 
nition rightly  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  a 
feeling  of  dependence  upon  an  invisible  Power 
beyond  man's  control,  is  manifested,  in  one  form 
or  another,  in  all  religions.  Even  the  Buddhist 

1  "  Der  Christliche  Glaube,"  5te  Ausg.,  S.  5. 

2  Ib.  S.  11.  a  Ib.  S.  12. 


12         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

regards  himself  as  in  bondage,  not  indeed  to  a 
person,  but  to  the  mysterious  power  known  as 
Karma,  which  has  determined  all  his  thinking, 
feeling,  and  acting,  his  suffering  and  enjoyment. 
Nevertheless,  as  has  often  been  pointed  out, 
the  definition  of  Schleiermacher  is  inadequate. 
It  is  so  because,  on  the  one  hand,  a  feeling  is 
inconceivable,  which  does  not  suppose  a  previous 
perception  or  cognition  of  something,  as  its 
occasion ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  this  feeling 
of  dependence,  which  is  an  element  in  all 
religion,  universally  prompts  to  action.  It  is 
not  accurate,  therefore,  to  represent  feeling  as 
any  more  essential  to  religion  than  knowledge 
or  action.  Nor,  again,  although  all  religion 
expresses  a  feeling  of  dependence,  is  it  true  that 
this  is  the  only  feeling  which  is  essential  to 
religion.  It  was  Hegel's  rather  rough  criticism 
of  this  definition,  that  if  it  were  true  that  the 
sentiment  of  dependence  was  the  one  essential 
element  in  religion,  then  a  dog  would  be  the 
most  religious  of  all  creatures ;  a  remark  which 
must  be  admitted  to  be  not  wholly  without 
reason. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  ?  13 

Hegel's  own  definition,  however,  we  must  also 
reject  as  inadequate,  that  religion  is  "  perfect 
freedom."  In  this  we  understand  him  to  refer 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  consciousness  of  every 
free  moral  agent,  there  is  a  contrast  and  a  con- 
flict between  the  actual  and  the  ideal.  And 
whereas  man,  in  his  efforts  to  realise  the  moral 
and  spiritual  ideal,  ever  feels  himself  resisted 
and  thwarted  by  forces  without  and  within  him, 
it  is,  as  he  regards  it,  distinctive  of  religion  that 
man  therein  escapes  from  this  bondage,  so  that 
his  inner  impulses  are  no  longer  in  conflict  with 
his  aspirations  after  moral  and  spiritual  perfec- 
tion ;  and  in  reaching  forth  unto  perfection,  he 
is  thus  thwarted  no  longer.  The  thought  has 
been  finely  expressed  by  Principal  Caird,  who 
tells  us  that  it  is  of  "  the  very  essence  of  religion 
that  the  Infinite  has  ceased .  to  be  merely  a  far- 
off  vision  of  spiritual  attainment,  and  ideal  of 
indefinite  future  perfection,  and  has  become  a 
present  reality."  l 

But  if  the  definition  of  Schleiermacher  was  at 

1  "  Philosophy  of  Religion,"  p.  294.  Italics  not  Principal 
Caird' s. 


14         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

fault  in  that  it  centred  religion  in  the  feelings, 
as  that  of  Fichte,  in  knowledge,  so  is  this  faulty 
in  that  it  centres  all  in  the  will.  It  may  be 
readily  granted  that  religion  concerns  the  will, 
and  that  so  closely  and  necessarily,  that  where 
there  is  no  willing,  there  cannot  be  said  to  be 
religion.  But  we  can  no  more  restrict  religion 
to  the  volitional,  than  to  the  emotional  or  the 
cognitive  faculty. 

It  has  also  been  justly  objected  to  this  defini- 
tion, and  to  others  essentially  like  it,  that  it 
logically  excludes  progress  in  religion,  in  that  it 
apparently  disallows  the  existence  of  religion 
where  anything  less  than  this  perfect  spiritual 
freedom  and  inner  harmony  of  the  soul  with  God 
is  found.  Nor  is  the  answer  which  Principal 
Caird  has  given  to  this  objection  satisfactory. 
He  has  said  that  the  religious  life  is  indeed  a 
progressive  one  ;  but  that  the  infinite  ideal  is  not 
realised  "  only  in  the  way  of  adding  perpetually 
to  the  sum  of  its  spiritual  attainments,"  in  which 
case  the  infinite  perfection  of  the  ideal  "would 
be  forever  unattainable."  *  The  infinitude  of 

1  "  Philosophy  of  Religion,"  p.  295. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  ?  15 

thought,  of  love  and  goodness,  is  "  not  that  which 
has  in  it  no  element  of  finitude,  but  that  which  is 
determined  by  nothing  external  to  itself."  To 
attain  the  ideal  in  this  sense,  he  says,  "  consti- 
tutes the  very  meaning  and  essence  of  religion." 
For,  again  explaining  himself,  he  says  that 
religion  is  "the  surrender  of  the  finite  will  to 
the  infinite,  the  abnegation  of  all  desire,  incli- 
nation, and  volition,  which  pertain  to  me  as 
this  private  individual  self,  .  .  .  the  absolute 
identification  of  my  will  with  the  will  of 
God."  And  this  "  oneness  of  mind  and  will, 
with  the  Divine  mind  and  will,  is  not  the 
future  hope  and  aim  of  religion,  but  its  very 
beginning  and  birth  in  the  soul.  To  enter 
on  the  religious  life  is  to  terminate  the  strug- 
gle between  my  false  self  and  that  higher 
self  which  is  at  once  mine  and  infinitely  more 
than  mine."  1  But,  assuredly,  there  is  much  in 
the  world  which  may  be  truly  called  religion, 
which  cannot  be  so  described.  Surely,  Hindoos 
and  Mohammedans  are  often  deeply  and  in- 
tensely religious ;  yet,  from  every  side  we  hear 

1  "Philosophy  of  Religion,"  pp.  296,  297. 


16        GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

among  them  the  confession,  and  most  of  all 
from  their  best  men,  that  the  struggle  between 
self-will  and  God's  will  is  not  with  them  at  an 
end.  This  is  not  even  true  of  the  Christian. 
It  is,  instead,  his  chief  trouble  that  he  has  not 
yet  reached  the  absolute  identification  of  his 
will  with  the  will  of  God.  Like  the  Apostle 
Paul,  he  is  constantly  constrained  to  confess, 
"  I  find  a  law  that  when  I  would  do  good,  evil 
is  present  with  me."  We  conclude,  therefore, 
that  all  definitions  which,  more  or  less  explicitly, 
make  religion  to  consist  in  "  perfect  freedom," 
err,  not  merely  in  that  they  regard  only  the 
volitional  part  of  man's  nature,  but  also  in  that 
they  make  that  to  be  of  the  essence  of  religion, 
which  only  belongs  to  the  complete  ideal  of  the 
Christian  life  ;  a  goal  which  the  most  profoundly 
religious  in  all  lands  and  ages  have  the  most 
earnestly  and  sadly  insisted  that  they  had  not 
yet  attained. 

Among  the  most  recent  important  definitions 
of  religion  is  that  which  has  been  given  by  Pro- 
fessor Max  Miiller,  in  the  Gilford  Lectures  for 
1888,  viz. :  "  Religion  consists  in  the  perception 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION?  17 

of  the  infinite  under  such  manifestations  as  are 
able  to  influence  the  moral  character  of  man."  l 
This  is  a  considerable  improvement  on  his  earlier 
definition  of  religion,  as  given  in  his  lectures  on 
the  Science  of  Religion,  in  1873,  and  repeated, 
although  with  less  confidence,  in  the  Hibbert 
Lectures,  in  1878;  namely,  that  "religion  is  a 
mental  faculty  which,  independent  of,  nay,  in 
spite  of  sense  and  reason,  enables  man  to  appre- 
hend the  Infinite,  under  different  names,  and 
under  varying  disguises."  2  He  himself,  in  these 
later  lectures,  justly  remarks  that  in  the  earlier 
definition  he  did  not  lay  sufficient  emphasis  on  the 
practical  side  of  religion.  There  is  perhaps 
room  in  this  definition,  as  not  in  the  former,  for 
the  suggestion,  at  least,  of  the  ideas  of  law  and 
obligation,  as  connected  with  religion.  Still  the 
objection  holds  good  against  the  earlier  and  the 
later  definition  alike,  when  read  in  the  light  of 
his  own  explanations,  that  in  them  both  he  uses 
the  word  "  infinite  "  in  a  sense  in  which  it  is 

1  "Natural  Religion,"  p.  188. 

2  " Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Religion,"  p.  13;    "Origin 
and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  23. 


18         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

rarely,  if  ever,  employed.  He  defines  it  as  "  all 
that  transcends  our  senses  and  our  reason." l 
He  uses  it,  therefore,  as  interchangeable  with 
the  words,  "the  invisible/'  "the  unknown,"  the 
"  indefinite."  One  cannot  but  feel  that,  as  was 
not  unnatural  perhaps  for  a  philologist,  he 
has  been  misled  by  an  etymology.  He  has 
apparently  reasoned  that  since  the  finite  is 
that  which  is  apprehended  by  the  senses  as 
having  limits  ;  the  in-finite  is  the  not-finite,  i.e. 
that  which  is  not  apprehended  by  the  senses 
as  having  limitations.2  But  surely  that  is 
not  the  sense  in  which  men  commonly  use 
this  word.  In  order  to  perceive  this,  we  only 
need  to  apply  the  word,  as  used  by  Professor 
Max  Miiller,  to  many  objects  which  tran- 
scend the  senses.  For  example,  the  human 
soul  transcends  the  senses.  But  is  it  there- 
fore infinite,  as  men  use  that  term  ?  Professor 
Max  Miiller,  indeed,  apparently  limits  the 
application  of  the  word  to  "the  Cause  beyond 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  27. 

2  Yet  he  says,  quite  correctly,  that  the   infinite  ' '  cannot  be 
treated  merely  as  a  negative  concept."  —  Ib.  p.  29. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  ?  19 

all  causes." 1  But  certainly  it  is  no  more 
true  of  this  First  Cause  than  of  a  multitude 
of  secondary  causes,  that  it  transcends  the 
senses.  For  the  immediate  causes  of  a  large 
part  of  the  operations  of  nature  transcend 
the  senses ;  shall  we,  therefore,  apply  the 
term  "  infinite "  to  these  ?  If  the  definition 
"be  correct,  why  restrict  the  term  to  the 
"Cause  beyond  all  causes"? 

Perhaps  the  definition  may  seem  less  unsat- 
isfactory, at  the  first,  to  some,  because  the 
term  "  infinite  "  is  so  often  used  as  an  epithet 
of  the  Supreme  Being.  But  in  the  Pro- 
fessor's vocabulary  this  term  has  no  such 
exalted  and  precise  meaning.  This  is  plain 
from  the  words  which  he  substitutes  for  it  as 
equivalents.  For  instance,  in  replying  to  those 
of  his  critics  who  have  complained  that  they 
were  unable  to  see  any  difference  between  the 
term  "infinite,"  as  employed  by  him  in  his 
argument,  and  the  word  "  indefinite,"  he  says 
that  he  "  can  quite  sympathise  with  them," 
because  he  himself  can  see  "  none  what- 

1  "  Natural  Religion,'1  p.  124. 


20         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

ever  !  "  1  Shall  we,  then,  substitute  this  latter 
term,  and  define  religion  as  "  the  perception 
of  the  indefinite  "  ?  and  will  this  be  any  more 
satisfactory,  although  it  is  added  that  in 
religion  "  the  indefinite "  is  perceived  under 
such  aspects  as  to  influence  the  moral  char- 
acter of  man? 

Again,  Professor  Max  Miiller  rightly  remarks 
that  the  terms  used  in  a  definition  of  religion 
should  be  such  as  to  be  applicable  to  all  relig- 
ions ;  and  he  is  at  some  pains  to  show  that  his 
definition  has  this  excellence.  He  says:  "I 
know  of  no  religion  that  cannot  be  caught  in 
this  wide  net." 2  We  will  admit  that  this  may 
be  true  of  Buddhism,  which  is  his  special  illus- 
tration ;  but  how  about  its  applicability  to  the 
Christianity  of  the  New  Testament,  or  to  the 
inner  experience  of  New  Testament  Christians  ? 
Would  it  be  just  to  describe  the  religion  of  the 

1  "  Physical  Religion,"  p.  298.     He  tells  us,  indeed,  that  in  the 
Hibbert  Lectures  he  wished  to  prove  "  that  indefinite  and  infinite 
are  in  reality  two  names  of  the  same  thing";   and  that  "the  In- 
finite must  always  remain  to  us  the  Indefinite."  —  "Origin  and 
Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  36. 

2  "Natural  Religion,"  p.  190. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  ?  21 

Apostle  Paul  as  a  perception  by  him  of  the 
indefinite,  in  such  a  way  as  to  influence  his 
conduct  ?  Will  any  Christian  recognise  this  as 
a  description  of  his  own  case,  that  in  his  relig- 
ious life,  his  apprehension  of  the  Infinite  is 
nothing  more  than  an  apprehension  of  the  in- 
definite ?  Such  questions  answer  themselves, 
and  in  the  answer  condemn  the  definition  be- 
fore us. 

Where  so  many  of  eminent  scholarship  and 
ability  have  failed,  one  may  well  feel  diffident 
in  suggesting  anything  else.  But  may  we 
venture  on  something  like  /the  following,  as  a 
definition  of  religion  in  its  broadest  sense  ? 

Religion  essentially  consists  in  mans  appre- 
hension of  his  relation  to  an  invisible  Power  or 
powers,  able  to  influence  his  destiny,  to  which  he 
is  necessarily  subject,  together  with  the  feelings, 
desires,  and  actions,  which  this  apprehension  calls 
forth. 

In  justification  of  this  definition  it  is  to  be 
observed,  first,  that  it  makes  religion  to  be  an 
experience  which  has  to  do  equally  with  every 
part  of  our  nature.  Religion  does  not  consist  in 


22         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

knowledge  merely,  nor  in  feeling  merely,  nor  in 
desire  or  willing  merely,  but  in  all  of  these, 
combined  in  a  necessary  and  inseparable  rela- 
tion. In  the  first  place,  there  is  in  all  religion 
a  cognitive  element,  an  apprehension  of  some- 
thing supersensual.  This  apprehension  is  in- 
deed variously  interpreted  by  different  peoples 
and  races,  but  always  there  is  an  apprehension 
of  something.  Without  this,  obviously,  a  feel- 
ing of  dependence,  for  example,  could  not  arise ; 
much  less  any  desire  or  action  of  a  religious 
character. 

We  further  define  this  apprehension  to  con- 
sist in  the  cognition  of  a  Power  or  powers.  Of 
the  nature  of  such  Power  or  powers  nothing  is 
affirmed,  so  far  as  the  definition  is  concerned ;  it 
may  be  real  or  imaginary,  one  or  many,  personal 
or  impersonal.  The  apprehension,  however, 
becomes  religious,  if  it  regard  man  as  dependent 
in  some  way  on  that  Power  or  powers. 

The  definition  is  therefore  applicable  to  every 
form  of  religion,  from  the  lowest  superstition  to 
the  highest  type  of  Christianity.  It  applies, 
for  instance,  to  fetishism.  For  that  which 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION  ?  23 

makes  the  fetish  to  the  apprehension  of  the 
savage  that  which  he  imagines  it  to  be,  is  the 
belief  that,  connected  with  that  bit  of  wood,  or 
bone,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  is  an  invisible 
power  able  to  affect  his  life.  The  definition 
applies  equally  to  all  pantheistic  systems  of 
religion,  as,  for  instance,  to  Hindooism,  whether 
philosophical  or  popular.  The  former  recognises 
a  Power  behind  all  that  exists,  by  the  activity 
of  which  everything  is  certainly  predetermined. 
It  is  impersonal,  but  it  is,  above  all  else,  a 
Power;  nay,  the  Power.  Popular  Hindooism 
worships  its  many  gods,  but  all  are  conceived  of, 
as,  however  diverse  in  other  respects,  always 
powers,  able  to  influence  the  destiny  of  man. 

And  this  definition  will  include  even  Bud- 
dhism. For  although  orthodox  Buddhism  rec- 
ognises no  God  as  determining  human  affairs,  it 
still  regards  the  life  of  man  as  determined ; 
not,  indeed,  by  Brahma,  or  any  or  all  of  the 
gods  which  it  recognises,  but  by  Karma. 
Karma  means  "action";  and  what  I  am  has 
been  determined  by  Karma;  that  is,  by  the 
power  of  the  whole  eternal  series  of  activities 


24         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

in  that  chain  of  existence  in  which  I  am  a 
single  link.  And,  as  my  present,  so  shall  also 
my  future  be  determined  by  this  same  mysteri- 
ous power,  the  power  of  Action.  It  is  true  that 
here  the  religious  idea  is  reduced  to  an  extreme 
attenuation.  The  Power  is  no  longer  a  god, 
still  less,  the  One  God,  personal  and  almighty ; 
not  even  a  God  in  the  pantheistic  Brahmanic 
sense,  impersonal,  unconscious.  But  yet  it  is 
admitted  that  there  is  a  Power,  superior  to  that 
of  the  individual  man,  or  of  the  whole  of  man- 
kind, which  absolutely  determines  all  that  con- 
cerns us. 

In  the  second  place,  the  definition  makes 
religion  also  to  include  an  emotional  element. 
Fundamental  in  every  religion  is  a  feeling  of 
dependence  on  the  Power  or  powers  believed 
to  exist.  Then  out  of  this  feeling  arise  other 
feelings,  according  as  man  conceives  the  nature 
of  the  object  or  objects  of  the  religious  sentiment. 
At  the  one  extreme,  we  find  fear,  often  of  a  very 
gross  and  earthly  kind  ;  at  the  other,  reverence, 
rising  at  last  to  an  adoring  love,  like  that  with 
which  the  Christian  regards  God  in  Christ,  re- 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION?  25 

!v 

vealed  as  Love  incarnate  and  dying  for  man's 
redemption. 

Finally,  with  the  cognitive  and  the  emotional 
element  in  every  religion  are  always  combined 
desire  and  volition,  taking  effect  in  various 
actions.  These,  naturally,  vary  according  to 
the  mode  under  which  the  invisible  Power  is 
conceived.  Most  fundamental  is  the  desire  to 
attain  and  maintain  such  a  relation  to  the 
Power  or  powers  believed  in,  as  shall  promote 
the  worshipper's  well-being,  here  and  hereafter ; 
and  according  to  the  way  in  which  the  Power 
is  conceived,  will  be  those  determinations  of  the 
will  by  which  it  is  sought  to  attain  a  satisfac- 
tory relation  thereto.  Hence  there  is  abun- 
dant room  in  the  definition  for  the  most  diverse 
and  morally  opposite  actions,  by  which  religion 
in  different  peoples  finds  expression ;  whether 
in  the  noble  devotion  to  the  present  and  eternal 
well-being  of  all  men  which  is  the  ideal  of 
Christian  character ;  or  in  the  revolting  cruel- 
ties by  which  multitudes  in  other  religions  have 
sought  to  commend  themselves  to  the  Power 
or  powers  they  have  worshipped ;  or,  in  the 


26          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

absolute  asceticism  of  the  ideal  Buddhist,  who 
forsakes  the  world,  that  he  may  ever  live 
"  alone  like  a  rhinoceros,"  1  without  ties,  with- 
out affection  to  anything  that  is. 

Religion,  then,  according  to  our  definition,  is 
a  complex  experience  consisting  in  the  appre- 
hension by  man  of  the  existence  of  an  invisible 
Power  or  powers,  determining  his  destiny,  to- 
gether with  the  feelings,  desires,  and  actions 
to  which  this  apprehension  gives  rise. 

This  definition  being  granted,  we  are  now 
prepared  for  the  inquiry  as  to  the  origin  of 
this  experience.  And  inasmuch  as  the  feelings, 
desires,  and  actions,  included  in  the  definition, 
are  called  forth  by  the  apprehension  of  the 
existence  of  an  invisible  Power  or  powers,  with 
which  man  stands  in  a  necessary  relation  of 
dependence,  the  question  as  to  the  origin  of 
religion  resolves  itself  into  this :  How  did  man 
first  come  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  such 
a  Power  or  powers,  as  related  thus  to  himself 
and  to  the  universe  ?  And  this  leads  us  to 

1  See  "  Khaggavisana  Sutta,"  s.  2,  4,  in  "  Sacred  Books  of  the 
East,"  vol.  x,  part  2,  p.  G. 


WHAT    IS    RELIGION?  27 

examine  some  of  the  more  noteworthy  of  those 
theories  which  in  our  day  have  been  pro- 
pounded, and  have  been  accepted  by  many  as 
a  satisfactory  answer  to  this  question. 


LECTURE    II. 

RELIGION   AND  NATURAL  DESCENT.     FETISHISM  AND 
ANIMISM. 

BEFORE  proceeding  to  the  particular  discus- 
sion of  some  of  the  more  popular  theories  by 
which  it  is  sought  in  our  day  to  account  for  the 
origin  and  growth  of  religion,  it  is  desirable 
to  consider  for  a  little  an  important  postulate 
which  their  advocates  commonly  assume  as  the 
basis  of  their  argument.  It  is  usually  taken  for 
granted,  and  often  formally  asserted  by  such, 
that  primitive  man  certainly  could  not  have 
been  superior  in  intellectual  and  spiritual 
capacity  to  the  lowest  modern  savage  races ; 
if,  indeed,  he  was  not  inferior  to  the  lowest  of 
them.  And  this  postulate  itself  is  rested  on 
another  assumption  not  yet  proved,  or 
provable ;  namely,  that  man  originated  in  a 
manner  exclusively  natural,  as  the  result  solely 
of  a  long  process  of  development,  from  one  or 


e> 
28 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  29 

more  pairs  of  anthropoid  apes.  If  this  may 
now  be  assumed  as  ascertained  scientific  truth, 
then  the  above  postulate  as  to  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  capacity  of  the  first  men,  appears 
to  be  justified;  and  it  becomes  highly  probable 
that  since  the  first  men  could  not  have  been 
much  in  advance  of  their  simian  parents,  relig- 
ion may  have  originated  in  some  such  way  as 
is  supposed  in  the  theories  to  be  hereafter  re- 
viewed. 

This  assumption  is  so  fundamental  to  these 
naturalistic  theories  as  to  the  origin  and  growth 
of  religion,  that  it  appears  indispensable,  as 
preliminary  to  any  detailed  criticism,  to  con- 
sider somewhat  carefully  the  question  whether 
this  may  or  may  not  be  rightly  taken  for 
granted  now  as  scientific  truth,  and  made  the 
basis  of  an  argument  leading  to  so  momentous 
conclusions. 

In  opposition  to  this  naturalistic  postulate, 
we  venture  to  affirm  that  the  origin  of  man  by 
a  mere  process  of  natural  descent  from  an  infe- 
rior order  of  the  animal  kingdom,  cannot  yet 
be  affirmed  as  established  scientific  truth.  We 


30         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

are,  of  course,  well  aware  that  the  contrary  is 
often  persistently  .asserted,  and  that  by  men  of 
repute  in  the  scientific  world.  But  it  may  well 
make  any  intelligent  layman  hesitate  to  accept  a 
theory  so  momentous  in  its  consequences  on  the 
whole  system-  of  scientific  and  religious  truth, 
when  it  is  observed  that  the  argument  which 
is  supposed  by  many  to  justify  the  assertion  of 
the  origin  of  man  by  merely  natural  processes, 
is  not  accepted  as  conclusive  by  authorities  who 
are  at  least  as  competent  to  form  a  trustworthy 
judgment  as  any  who  affirm  this. 

The  eminent  Professor  Virchow  of  the 
University  of  Berlin,  as  president  of  a  recent 
gathering  of  the  German  and  Vienna  Anthro- 
pological Societies,  held  in  Vienna,  speaking 
on  this  point,  used  the  following  words :  — 

"When  we  met  in  Vienna  twenty  years 
ago,  .  .  .  there  was  a  general  expectation  that 
man's  descent  from  the  ape  or  some  other  ani- 
mal, would  be  demonstrated.  .  .  .  This,  Dar- 
winism has  not,  up  to  the  present  time,  succeeded 
in  doing.  In  vain  have  the  links  which  should 
bind  man  with  the  ape  been  sought ;  not  a 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  31 

single  one  is  to  be  recorded.  The  so-called 
"  Fore-man/'  the  Pro-anthropos,  which  should 
represent  this  link,  has  never  yet  been  found. 
No  man,  of  real  learning  professes  that  he  has 
seen  him.  .  .  -  Perhaps  some  one  may  have 
seen  him  in  a  dream,,  but  when  awake  he  will 
never  be  able  to  say  that  he  has  come  across 
him.  Even  the  hope  of  his  future  discovery 
has  fallen  far  into  the  background ;  he  is  now 
scarcely  spoken  of ;  for  we  live  not  in  a  world 
of  imagination  or  dreams,  but  in  an  actual 
world,  and  this  has  shown  itself  extremely 
unyielding.  ...  At  present  we  only  know 
that  among  archaic  men  none  have  been 
found  that  stood  nearer  the  ape  than  men  of 
to-day.  ...  It  is  clear  that  among  all  unciv- 
ilised tribes  there  is  not  a  single  one  that  would 
stand  at  all  nearer  to  the  ape  than  to  us."  1 

In  the  presence  of  such  testimony  as  this, 
from  such  an  authority,  one  who  moreover  by 
no  means  stands  alone  in  this  position,  it 

1  Translated  from  the  Correspondenz  Blatt  der  deutschen 
Gesellschaft  filr  Anthropologie,  in  the  "  Journal  of  the  Transac- 
tions of  the  Victoria  Institute,"  vol.  xxiv,  1890,  pp.  258-260. 


32         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

should  be  evident  that  no  one  has  yet  a  right 
to  base  a  theory  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  religion  upon  the  assumption  of  the 
existence  of  a  kind  of  demi-man  in  a 
bygone  prehistoric  age,  when  the  existence  of 
such  a  being  has  never  yet  been  proved. 
This  were  to  desert  that  scientific  method,  to 
which  theologians  are  so  often,  by  their  oppo- 
nents on  the  scientific  side,  earnestly  exhorted 
to  adhere. 

In  the  second  place,  in  further  criticism  of 
this  naturalistic  assumption,  it  is  to  be 
remarked  that  a  singular  confusion  often 
appears  in  the  argument  by  which  it  is 
supported.  It  is  urged  that  we  are  confronted 
by  a  large  and  constantly  increasing  body  of 
ascertained  facts,  such  as  can  only  be  rationally 
accounted  for  on  the  supposition  that  man  has 
originated  through  lineal  descent  from  a  lower 
order  of  the  animal  kingdom,  —  a  statement 
which  we  are  not  in  any  wise  concerned  here 
to  dispute.  But  those  who  take  for  granted 
the  truth  of  this  statement,  very  commonly  at 
once  assume,  further,  that  all  evidence  which 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  33 

tends  to  prove,  or  is  thought  to  demonstrate, 
such  a  lineal  connection  of  man  with  some 
anthropoid  ape,  is  no  less  evidence  of  a  purely 
natural  evolution. 

But  this  assumption  is  demonstrably  false. 
For  the  proposition  that  man  was  derived 
from  the  lower  orders  of  the  animal  kingdom 
through  a  process  of  descent,  and  the  proposi- 
tion that  such  descent,  because  one  factor,  was 
therefore  the  only  factor  in  his  origination, 
are  far  enough  from  being  identical.  It  is 
perfectly  thinkable  that  man  should  be  genet- 
ically related  to  other  orders  of  the  animal 
creation,  and  that,  none  the  less,  his  appearance 
should  be  due  to  a  supernatural  interposition 
of  the  creative  Power.  To  prove  such  lineal 
descent  is  one  thing ;  to  prove  that  this  is 
the  whole  and  sufficient  explanation  of  man's 
origin,  is  quite  another  matter ;  and  one,  we 
venture  to  submit,  which  will  be  found  vastly 
more  difficult. 

Hence,  if  any  feel  constrained  to  concede  that 
the  investigations  of  the  past  generation  have 
made  it  highly  probable  that  man  has  lineally 

D 


34         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

descended  from  some  inferior  order  of  the  ani- 
mal kingdom,  this  by  no  means  logically  forbids 
us,  as  some  imagine,  still  to  affirm  a  direct, 
supernatural,  creative  interposition  of  God,  as  a 
co-factor  with  the  natural  process,  and  essential 
to  the  origination  of  man.  Perhaps  one  may  be 
allowed,  with  the  deepest  reverence,  to  draw  an 
illustration  from  the  teaching  of  Holy  Scripture, 
regarding  the  holy  incarnation.  The  Church 
in  her  creeds  has  universally  recognised  the  fact 
affirmed  in  the  Gospels,  that  Jesus  Christ  was 
born  of  Mary,  and  was  thus  connected  with  our 
race  by  lineal  descent  through  his  mother.  But 
the  affirmation  of  this  natural  birth,  neither  in 
Holy  Scripture  nor  in  the  faith  of  the  Church, 
has  ever  been  regarded  as  exclusive  of  the 
affirmation  also  of  the  supernatural  conception 
of  our  blessed  Lord  in  the  womb  of  the  Virgin, 
so  that  He  was  no  less  Son  of  God  than  Son  of 
Man.  The  Christian  doctrine  of  the  holy  incar- 
nation is  thus  itself  a  demonstration  that, 
logically,  the  natural  and  supernatural  are  not, 
in  any  event,  necessarily  exclusive  the  one  of 
the  other.  Whether  the  reality  of  the  Incarna- 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  35 

tion  be  granted  or  not,  the  fact  of  the  so  wide 
acceptance  of  the  doctrine  as  representing  a 
historic  fact,  is  proof  that,  according  to  the  laws 
of  thought,  the  co-operation  of  the  natural  and 
the  supernatural  in  the  production  of  a  certain 
new  order  of  being,  is  perfectly  conceivable. 

Nor  is  this  suggestion  of  a  possible  co-oper- 
ation of  a  genetic  with  a  creative  process  in  the 
genesis  of  man,  merely  a  last  resort  of  despair- 
ing theologians,  in  view  of  the  accumulating 
evidence  of  some  such  lineal  connection  between 
man  and  the  lower  orders  of  creation.  Alfred 
Russell  Wallace,  certainly  'one  of  the  foremost 
evolutionists  of  our  time,  who  shares  with 
Mr.  Darwin  the  origination  of  the  theory  of 
the  origin  of  species  by  natural  selection,  in 
his  latest  published  work,  expressly  affirms  this 
as  a  conclusion  to  which  he  has  been  compelled, 
on  scientific  grounds,  by  certain  indisputable 
facts.  He  says  :  — 

"  I  fully  accept  Mr.  Darwin's  conclusion  as 
to  the  essential  identity  of  man's  bodily  struc- 
ture with  that  of  the  higher  mammalia,  and 
his  descent  from  some  form  common  to  man 


36         GENESIS   AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

and  the  anthropoid  apes.  The  evidence  of  such 
descent  appears  to  me  to  be  overwhelming  and 
conclusive.  .  .  .  But  this  is  only  the  be- 
ginning of  Mr.  Darwin's  work.  .  .  .  His 
whole  argument  tends  to  the  conclusion  that 
man's  entire  nature  and  all  his  faculties, 
whether  moral,  intellectual,  or  spiritual,  have 
been  derived  from  their  rudiments  in  the  lower 
animals,  in  the  same  manner,  and  by  the  action 
of  the  same  general  laws,  as  his  physical  nature 
has  been  derived.  This  conclusion  appears  to 
me  not  to  be  supported  by  adequate  evidence,  and 
to  be  directly  opposed  to  many  well  ascertained 
facts.  ...  To  prove  continuity  and  the  pro- 
gressive development  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  faculties  from  animals  to  man,  is  not  the 
same  as  proving  that  these  faculties  have  been 
developed  by  natural  selection.  .  .  .  Because 
man's  physical  structure  has  been  developed 
from  an  animal  form  by  natural  selection,  it 
does  not  necessarily  follow  that  his  mental 
nature,  even  though  developed  pari  passu  with 
it,  has  been  developed  by  the  same  causes  only."  l 

1  "  Darwinism,"  pp.  461,  463.    Italics  our  own. 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  37 

In  illustration  of  this,  Mr.  Wallace  then  in- 
stances the  mathematical,  the  musical,  and  the 
artistic,  faculties,  as  facts  which  compel  us  to 
postulate  for  them  some  origin  wholly  distinct 
from  that  which  may  suffice  to  account  for  the 
animal  characteristics,  whether  mental  or  bodily, 
of  man.  He  says :  "  These  special  faculties 
we  have  been  discussing,  clearly  point  to  the 
existence  in  man  of  something  which  he  has 
not  derived  from  his  animal  progenitors  — 
something  which  we  may  best  refer  to  as  being 
of  a  spiritual  essence  or  nature.  .  .  .  These 
faculties  could  not  possibly,  have  been  developed 
by  means  of  the  same  laws  which  have  deter- 
mined the  progressive  -development  of  the 
organic  world  in  general,  and  also  of  man's 
physical  organism."  l 

The  higher  faculties  in  man,  he  then  argues, 
"point  clearly  to  an  unseen  universe  —  to  a 
world  of  spirit  to  which  the  world  of  matter 
is  altogether  subordinate."  2  And  he  thus  con- 
cludes, —  while  insisting  with  the  utmost  con- 
fidence on  man's  derivation  from  the  animal 

1  "Darwinism,"  pp.  474,  475.  2  Ib.  p.  476. 


38         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

world  by  a  process  of  descent,  as  regards  all 
that  pertains  merely  to  his  animal  nature, — 
that,  nevertheless,  for  the  introduction,  at  suc- 
cessive epochs,  into  the  world,  of  unconscious, 
conscious,  and,  finally,  of  intellectual  and  moral, 
life,  as  we  see  it  in  man,  "  we  can  only  find 
an  adequate  cause  in  the  unseen  universe  of 
Spirit."  l 

These  words  of  Mr.  Wallace  well  deserve  to 
be  carefully  considered.  It  is  quite  time  that 
intelligent  men  should  cease  to  confound  things 
which  widely  differ,  and  recognise  the  immense 
difference  between  evidence  of  descent  as  one 
factor  in  the  origin  of  man,  and  evidence  of 
descent  as  the  only  factor  in  the  origin  of  man. 
And  in  estimating  the  value  of  many  fashion- 
able theories  as  to  the  origin  of  religion,  it  is  of 
the  first  importance  to  keep  this  clear  distinc- 
tion in  mind.  We  cannot  allow  men — above 
all,  in  the  name  of  exact  science  —  to  smuggle 
into  the  premises  of  their  argument  a  mistaken 
assumption  of  the  identity  of  things  that  differ ; 
an  assumption,  which,  as  appears,  according  to 

1  "Darwinism,"  p.  478. 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  39 

scientific  authority  perhaps  second  to  none,  is 
not  justified,  or  is  even  in  contradiction  to  indis- 
putable facts. 

The  bearing  of  all  this  on  all  the  current 
evolutionary  theories  of  the  origin  and  growth 
of  religion  is  evident.  When  Pfleiderer,  for 
instance,  tells  us  that  primitive  man  "  could 
not  have  been  conscious  of  his  superiority  to 
other  animals,  nor  of  his  personality,  and  his 
spiritual  nature  "  ;  and  that  his  religion  could 
only  have  been  "  a  kind  of  indistinct  and 
chaotic  naturism,"  he  uses  language  which, 
however  defensible,  if  man  be  the  result 
merely  of  forces  resident  in  organic  nature,  is 
without  any  justification,  if  such  naturalists  as 
Mr.  Wallace  be  right.  For  if  man,  although 
lineally  connected  with  forms  of  life  below  him, 
yet  owes  his  existence  to  the  creative  inter- 
position of  a  Power  from  the  unseen  and 
spiritual  world,  then  there  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  for  assuming  that  the  first  men  must 
have  been  of  such  an  exceedingly  low  order 
as  Pfleiderer  and  others  suppose ;  but  rather 

1  See  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  article,  Religions,  p.  379. 


40          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

for  believing  what  all  archaic  remains  of 
men  hitherto  found  distinctly  indicate,  that  in 
intellectual  and  moral  capacity,  the  primitive 
men  were  fully  equal  to  their  descendants  of 
to-day. 

Let  us  not  be  misunderstood.  We  are  not 
in  the  least  concerned  to  maintain  that  the 
first  men  must  have  been  the  equals  of  the 
modern  races  in  respect  of  actual  attainment. 
Rational  considerations,  modern  discoveries,  and 
the  record  in  Genesis,  all  alike  require  us  to 
deny  this.  Not  only  could  not  the  first  men 
build  pyramids  arid  hanging  gardens,  but, 
according  even  to  the  Biblical  record,  man 
at  first  went  naked,  was  then  clothed  with 
skins  ;  was  ignorant  of  the  art  of  working  in 
metals,  as  of  other  arts.  Nevertheless,  it 
does  not  follow  from  this  deficiency  in  attain- 
ments for  which  time  was  necessarily  required, 
that  the  primitive  man  must  have  been  such  a 
semi-idiot  as  the  animistic  or  the  fetish  theory 
of  the  origin  of  religion  supposes.  All  the 
evidence  as  yet  before  the  world,  is  clearly  to 
the  contrary. 


RELIGION    AND    NATURAL    DESCENT.  41 

Admitting,  then,  that  modern  investigation 
has  revealed  a  multitude  of  facts  which  seem 
to  point  more  or  less  distinctly  to  a  relation  of 
descent  between  man  and  the  inferior  creatures, 
we  still  affirm,  without  hesitation,  that  modern 
science  has  not  thereby  advanced  a  single  step 
toward  the  proof  of  a  purely  naturalistic  evo- 
lution ;  and  that,  therefore,  all  those  theories  of 
the  origin  of  religion  which  assume  such  a 
semi-bestial  condition  as  characteristic  of  the 
first  men,  and  from  this  assumption  argue  as 
to  what  was  and  was  not  possible  to  primi- 
tive man  in  religious  thought,  are  essentially 
unscientific ;  unscientific,  in  that  they  assume 
that  to  be  proved,  which  as  yet  is  not  estab- 
lished as  fact,  but  still  remains  in  the  region 
of  pure  hypothesis. 

After  this  brief  examination  of  the  presup- 
position on  which  the  theories  to  be  reviewed 
in  these  lectures  fundamentally  rest,  we  may 
now  consider  them  more  in  detail.  We  begin 
with  the  animistic  and  the  fetish  theories, 
which  may  conveniently  be  treated  together. 

It  is   a   familiar   fact    that    many   tribes    of 


42         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

little  or  no  culture  and  civilisation,  regard 
with  a  superstitious  reverence  and  fear, 
various  inanimate  objects,  such  as  stones, 
sticks,  shells,  etc.,  in  which  they  suppose  a 
supernatural  power  to  reside.  Such  objects 
are  called  fetishes  ;  and  the  regard  and  rev- 
erence which  is  shown  to  them,  "  fetishism " 
or  "fetish-worship."  This  has  been  supposed 
by  many  to  represent  the  most  primitive 
form  of  religion,  still  surviving  among  such 
peoples. 

Tiele,  however,  very  properly  classifies  fet- 
ishism with  what  he  calls  "  spiritism,"  under 
the  broader  name  of  "  animism  "  ;  which  last 
he  defines  to  be  the  belief  in  souls  or  spirits, 
of  which  "those  upon  which  man  feels  him- 
self to  be  dependent,  and  before  which  he 
stands  in  awe,  acquire  the  rank  of  divine 
beings,  and  become  objects  of  worship." l 

So  long  as  these  spirits  are  regarded  as  dis- 
embodied, he  calls  this  form  of  animism 
"  spiritism."  But,  he  adds,  these  spirits  may  also 
be  regarded  as  "  taking  up  their  abode,  either 

1  "Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  article,  Religions,  p.  380. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  43 

temporarily  or  permanently,  in  some  material 
object,  whether  living  or  lifeless,  it  matters 
not;  which  object,  as  supposed  to  be  endowed 
with  a  higher  power  than  belongs  to  it  by 
nature,  is  then  worshipped  or  employed  to  pro- 
tect individuals  and  communities."  l  Such  an 
object,  thus  regarded,  he  defines  to  be  a  fetish, 
and  the  worship  and  reverence  paid  to  such 
objects  is  fetishism. 

This  fetishism,  by  Des  Brosses  and  others,  in 
former  times  has  been  supposed  to  represent 
the  earliest  form  of  religion,  out  of  which  all 
other  forms  have  arisen  by  a, process  of  natural 
evolution.  Professor  Tiele,  however,  while 
believing  that  fetishism  exhibits  a  very  early 
type  of  religion,  does  not  regard  it  as  absolutely 
primitive  ;  but  with  good  reason  argues  that 
animism,  or  the  worship  of  spirits,  must  logically 
be  supposed  to  have  preceded  it.  Elsewhere 
he  expresses  a  belief  that  man  in  his  primitive 
stage  "  must  have  regarded  the  natural  phe- 
nomena on  which  his  life  and  welfare  depended, 
as  living  beings,  endowed  with  superhuman, 

1  "Outlines  of  the  History  of  Religion,"  4th  ed.  p.  9. 


44         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

magical  power."  l  According  to  this  animistic 
theory,  therefore,  religion  originated  in  a  mis- 
take of  the  primitive  men,  who  ignorantly 
supposed  various  natural  objects  to  be  alive 
like  themselves,  and  endowed  with  superhuman 
power.  But  even  if  we  should  grant  this 
hypothesis  of  a  primitive  animistic  naturism, 
in  so  far  as  regards  the  worship  of  those  objects 
which,  if  they  have  not  life,  yet  in  the  power 
of  movement  have  a  certain  semblance  of  life, 
still  we  should  be  as  far  as  ever  from  account- 
ing for  the  worship  of  inert  objects  regarded 
as  fetishes.  If  one  can  conceive  how  ignorant 
men,  seeing  objects  moving  of  themselves, 
might  argue  with  themselves  that  they  must 
be  endowed  with  an  invisible  life  or  spirit,  such 
as  they  recognised  as  the  cause  of  their  own 
activities,  yet  this  does  not  explain  an  original 
veneration  of  such  inert,  dead  objects,  as  sticks, 
stones,  and  shells,  which  never  appear  as  if 
endowed  with  life  and  power,  but  the  opposite. 
For  the  theory  of  an  original  animism  as  the 

1  See   article   Religions   in    the    "Encyclopaedia    Britannica," 
above  cited. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  45 

earliest  form  of  religion,  Professor  Tiele  has 
argued,  in  substance,  as  follows  :  — 

"  1.  The  most  recent  investigations  indicate 
that  the  civilisation  of  the  primitive  men  was  of 
no  higher  type  than  that  of  the  present  savages; 
nay,  it  had  not  even  advanced  so  far ;  and  in 
such  a  civilisation  no  purer  religious  beliefs, 
ideas,  and  usages  are  possible,  than  those  which 
we  find  among  existing  communities. 

"  2.  The  civilised  religions  whose  history 
ascends  to  the  remotest  ages,  such  as  the 
Egyptian,  the  Akkadian,  the  Chinese,  show  still 
more  clearly  than  later  religions  the  influence 
of  animistic  conceptions. 

"  3.  Almost  the  whole  of  the  mythology  and 
theology  of  civilised  nations  may  be  traced 
without  arrangement  or  co-ordination,  and  in 
forms  that  are  undeveloped  and  original, 
rather  than  degenerate,  in  the  traditions  and 
ideas  of  savages. 

"4.  Lastly,  the  numerous  traces  of  animistic 
worship  in  higher  religions  are  best  explained 
as  the  survival  and  revival  of  older  elements."  1 

1  "  Outline  of  the  History  of  Religions,"  pp.  8,  9. 


46         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

These  assertions  have  not  been  allowed,  how- 
ever, to  go  undisputed.  To  these  and  other 
arguments  for  the  origin  and  subsequent 
development  of  all  religions  from  an  original 
worship  either  of  nature-spirits  or  of  fetishes, 
based  on  an  ignorant  misinterpretation  of  nat- 
ural phenomena,  stand  opposed  many  weighty 
considerations. 

Animism  and  fetishism  alike  evidently  rest 
upon  an  assumption  as  to  the  status  of  the 
primitive  man,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  cannot 
be  scientifically  justified. 

Again,  we  cannqt  safely  argue  from  the  case 
of  the  modern  savage  to  that  of  the  first  men, 
and  infer  the  beliefs  of  the  former  from  what 
we  may  now  see  in  the  latter.  The  languages 
of  many  of  the  most  degraded  savages  show 
in  a  most  convincing  manner  that  in  them 
we  see,  not  beings  very  like  the  primitive 
men,  but,  on  the  contrary,  greatly  degenerated 
types. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Comber,  in  his  valuable 
"  Grammar  and  Dictionary  of  the  Kongo  Lan- 
guage," tells  us  that  in  his  study  of  the 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  47 

language  he  met  with  "  new  surprises  at  every 
point  and  turn,  as  the  richness,  flexibility, 
exactness,  subtlety  of  idea  and  nicety  of  ex- 
pression, of  the  language,  revealed  themselves." l 
He  tells  us,  further,  that  "this  wealth  in  idea 
and  form  does  not  specially  characterise  Kongo, 
but  is  possessed  by  the  whole  family  of  Bantu 
languages  to  a  greater  or  less  extent."  He 
rightly  adds  that  "  the  widespread  possession 
of  these  qualities  points  to  their  existence  in 
the  parent  stem,  which  must  itself  have  been 
of  a  high  class." 

In  this  he  fully  agrees  with  the  testimony  of 
the  Rev.  J.  Leigh  ton  Wilson,  who  laboured  in 
another  part  of  the  great  Bantu  language  area, 
among  a  Mpongwe  speaking  people.  As  to  the 
speech  of  these  now  fetish-worshipping  tribes, 
he  tells  us  that  "this  great  family  of  languages, 
if  the  Mpongwe  dialect  may  be  taken  as  a 
specimen,  is  remarkable  for  its  beauty,  elegance, 
and  perfectly  philosophical  arrangement,  as 
well  as  for  its  almost  indefinite  expansibility." 

Similar  testimony  is  given  as  to  the  Santali, 

1  Op.  cit,  Preface,  p.  xxiii. 


48         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

one  of  the  dialects  of  the  degraded  aborigines 
of  India,  like  the  Bantu  languages  of  Africa, 
only  reduced  to  writing  by  missionaries.  An 
experienced  labourer  among  that  people  has 
told  the  writer  that,  in  the  conjugation  of  the 
verb,  for  example,  the  Santali  rivals,  if  it  does 
not  excel,  the  Greek,  in  its  capacity  for  dis- 
criminating the  most  delicate  and  refined  dis- 
tinctions of  thought. 

But  it  is  needless  to  multiply  illustrations. 
The  facts  are  now  so  well  known  that  most 
competent  scholars  recognise  them,  and  admit 
their  force.  To  the  great  significance  of  these 
linguistic  phenomena  as  bearing  against  the 
probable  truth  of  the  fetish-theory  of  the  gen- 
esis of  religion,  Professor  Max  Miiller  has  called 
attention,  reminding  the  reader  that  the  facts 
are  fatal  to  the  assumption  of  those  who,  from 
the  present  intellectual  and  spiritual  condition 
of  fetish-worshipping  tribes,  would  infer  the 
condition  and  capacity  of  primitive  men,  and 
by  consequence  a  like  low  form  for  their  relig- 
ion. He  says :  — 

"All  the  stories  of  tribes  without  language, 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  49 

more  like  the  twitterings  of  birds  than  the 
articulate  sounds  of  human  beings,  belong  to 
the  chapter  of  ethnological  fables;  and  what 
is  more  important  still,  is  that  many  of  the 
so-called  savage  languages  have  been  shown 
to  possess  a  most  perfect,  in  many  cases  a  too 
perfect,  that  is  to  say,  too  artificial,  a  gram- 
mar, while  their  dictionaries  possess  a  wealth 
of  names  any  poet  might  envy.  .  .  .  Every 
language,  even  that  of  Papuans  and  Veddas, 
is  such  a  masterpiece  of  abstract  thought, 
that  it  would  baffle  the  ingenuity  of  many 
philosophers  to  produce  anything  like  it.  In 
several  cases  the  grammar  of  the  so-called 
savage  dialects  bears  evidence  to  a  far  higher 
state  of  culture  possessed  by  these  people  in 
former  times." 1 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  refers  to  similar  facts 
in  like  terms,  warning  us  that  we  are  not  per- 
mitted to  assume  that  in  modern  savage  races 
we  see  beings  very  like  the  primitive  men, 
because  "there  are  reasons  for  suspecting  that 
men  of  the  lowest  types,  now  known  ...  do 

1  »  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  72,  73. 
E 


50         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

not  exemplify  men  as  they  originally  were. 
Probably  most  of  them  had  ancestors  in  higher 
states."1 

In  the  presence  of  such  facts  as  those  which 
have  been  mentioned,  it  is  obviously  of  no  force 
to  argue  that  because  many  savage  races  now 
know  of  no  worship  except  that  of  fetishes  or 
various  nature-spirits,  therefore,  inasmuch  as 
primitive  man  cannot  have  stood  higher  than 
these,  he  could  not  have  had  any  correct  con- 
ception of  God.  If  there  is  evidence  that 
savages  are  degenerate  families  of  men,  then 
the  primitive  man  may  have  easily  been  in 
religious  capacity  their  superior. 

But  even  if  we  should  not  insist  on  this, 
and  for  the  sake  of  the  argument  grant  the 
assumption  that  primitive  man  could  not  have 
been  superior  to  modern  savages ;  and  that 
hence  no  religious  ideas  could  have  been  pos- 
sible to  him  other  than  such  as  are  found 
among  such  tribes  to-day ;  still  this  would  not 
suffice  to  prove  that  either  fetishism  or  animism 
must  have  been  the  primitive  form  of  religion. 

i  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  93. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  51 

For,  unfortunately  for  Professor  Tiele's  argu- 
ment, it  is  a  fact  to  which  there  is  abundant 
unimpeachable  testimony,  that  even  among  the 
lowest  fetish  and  demon  worshipping  tribes, 
commonly,  if  not  always,  we  find  coexisting 
with  their  superstitious  religious  beliefs  and 
practices,  the  belief  in  an  invisible  personal 
God,  above  all  spirits  and  fetishes.  The .  re- 
searches of  modern  travellers,  and  especially 
of  missionaries,  who  have  lived  for  years  in 
daily  intercourse  with  such  people,  have  cast 
in  recent  years  a  flood  of  light  upon  this  sub- 
ject. Statements  such  as  Jiave  been  made  by 
Sir  John  Lubbock  and  others,  to  the  effect  that 
such  and  such  tribes  have  no  idea  of  God,  have 
received  again  and  again  conclusive  refutation, 
through  a  careful  and  critical  review  of  the 
testimony  they  adduce,  in  the  light  of  a  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  facts.  The  extensive  dis- 
coveries of  the  past  generation  have  revealed 
the  existence  of  no  tribe  so  low  as  not  to  have 
been  able  to  form  any  conception  of  God.  In- 
stead of  this,  they  have  so  often  reversed  pre- 
viously held  opinions  to  the  contrary,  that  they 


52          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

give  us  rather  reason  to  believe  that  when  all 
the  facts  shall  have  been  carefully  investigated, 
we  shall  probably  not  find  a  single  tribe,  how- 
ever addicted  to  the  worship  of  demons  and 
spirits,  which  has  not,  along  with  this,  also  the 
conception  of  a  Supreme  Spirit,  upon  whom  all 
things  in  heaven  and  earth  depend.  The  de- 
graded tribes  of  the  west  coast  of  Africa  have 
long  with  good  reason  furnished  a  typical  illus- 
tration of  the  characteristics  of  a  fetish- worship- 
ping people.  But  with  regard  to  these,  the 
missionary,  Rev.  Dr.  J.  Leighton  Wilson,  in  his 
work  before  quote<J,  tells  us  concerning  the 
tribes  in  Northern  and  Southern  Guinea :  — 

"  The  belief  in  one  great  Supreme  Being  who 
made  and  upholds  all  things,  is  universal.  Nor 
is  this  idea  imperfectly  or  obscurely  developed 
in  their  minds.  The  impression  is  so  deeply 
engraved  upon  their  mental  and  moral  natures, 
that  any  system  of  atheism  strikes  them  as  too 
absurd  and  preposterous  to  require  a  denial. 
.  .  .  All  the  tribes  in  the  country  with  which 
the  writer  has  become  acquainted,  and  they  are 
not  a  few,  have  a  name  for  God,  and  many  of 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  53 

them  have  two  or  more,  significant  of  His 
character  as  a  Maker,  Preserver,  and  Bene- 
factor." 

Of  the  relation  in  which  this  prevailing 
idea  of  God  stands  to  the  prevailing  worship 
of  fetishes,  Dr.  Wilson  gives  the  following 
explanation :  — 

"  The  prevailing  notion  seems  to  be  that 
God,  after  having  made  the  world  and  filled 
it  with  inhabitants,  retired  to  some  remote 
corner  of  the  universe,  and  has  allowed  the 
affairs  of  the  world  to  come  under  the  control 
of  evil  spirits ;  and  hence,  the  only  religious 
worship  which  is  performed,  is  directed  to  these 
spirits,  the  object  of  which  is  to  court  their 
favour,  or  ward  on0  their  displeasure." 

Such  a  phenomenon,  then,  as  fetish  or  spirit- 
worship  existing  alone,  and  without  any  ac- 
companying belief  in  a  supreme  Spirit,  who 
is  above  all  fetishes  and  other  objects  of  wor- 
ship, is  yet  to  be  certainly  pointed  out.  Hence 
the  argument  for  the  animistic  or  the  fetish 
theory,  which  is  based  upon  the  contrary  suppo- 
sition, breaks  down,  as  without  any  established 


54         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF   RELIGION. 

foundation  in  fact.  And  we  may  rightly  insist 
that  if  it  be  thus  possible  for  men  so  debased 
in  the  scale  of  intelligence  as  some  modern 
savage  tribes,  to  have  the  concept  of  one  in- 
visible, spiritual,  supreme  God ;  then,  even  if 
the  primitive  man  was  no  higher  than  they, 
such  a  belief  may  have  been  possible  to  him 
too,  and  his  religion  may  not  after  all  have 
originated  in  the  blundering  of  superstitious 
ignorance. 

Nor  is  this  argument  weakened  if,  as  re- 
quired alike  by  modern  discoveries  and  the 
intimations  of  Holy  Scripture,  we  admit  that 
the  first  men  could  not  have  been  called  civil- 
ised, but  were  ignorant  of  the  most  common 
arts  of  life.  For  it  is  another  mistaken  assump- 
tion which  underlies  this  argument  for  a  primi- 
tive animism  or  fetishism,  as  the  original  type 
of  religion,  that  the  development  of  religious 
ideas  must  always  be  in  exact  proportion  to 
-the  degree  of  intellectual  culture  and  civilisa- 
tion which  an  individual  or  a  race  may  have 
attained.  The  facts  prove  that  this  is  not  true. 
Indeed,  the  reverse  is  so  often  seen  that  it  would 


FETISHISM   AND    ANIMISM.  55 

be  a  more  hopeful  task  to  attempt  to  show 
that  these  tend  to  maintain  an  inverse  ratio 
to  each  other.  But,  to  say  no  more,  history 
shows  beyond  dispute  that  there  is  no  constant 
and  necessary  relation  between  the  advance- 
ment of  an  individual  or  a  race  in  intellectual 
and  material  civilisation,  and  the  development 
of  religious  ideas. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  phenomena 
in  human  life,  that  very  often  religious  concep- 
tions of  a  very  high  order  appear  among 
peoples  and  individuals  who  have  made  com- 
paratively little  progress  in  intellectual  culture ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  very  high  attain- 
ments in  the  latter  often  coexist,  as  in  ancient 
Greece  and  Rome,  —  and,  alas,  in  too  many  of 
our  modern  states,  —  with  something  approach- 
ing to  a  paralysis  of  the  religious  sense,  and 
avowed  or  practical  atheism.  On  this  point, 
again,  Professor  Max  Miiller  has  remarked 
decisively :  — 

"No  one  would  venture  to  maintain  that 
religion  always  keeps  pace  with  general  civili- 
sation. .  .  .  We  see  Abraham,  a  nomad,  fully 


56         GENESIS   AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

impressed  with  the  necessity  of  the  Godhead, 
while  Solomon,  famous  among  the  kings  of 
the  earth,  built  high  places  for  Chemosh  and 
Molech." l  Most  American  Indians  are  more 
religious  than  was  the  poet  Lucretius. 

All  this  receives  pertinent  illustration  among 
some  savage  races  of  to-day,  with  whom  we 
find  no  trace  of  fetish  or  spirit  worship;  while 
on  the  other  hand  among  many  races  of  far 
superior  natural  intellectual  endowments,  as, 
e.g.,  the  Hindoos,  the  worship  of  various  spirits, 
and  of  objects  which  are  regarded  as  veritable 
fetishes,  prevails  ,  extensively.  As  regards 
fetishism  in  particular,  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer 
again  has  spoken  decisively  on  this  point.  He 
says :  — 

"How  untenable  is  the  idea  that  fetishism 
comes  first  among  superstitions,  will  now  be 
manifest.  Suppose  the  facts  reversed.  Sup- 
pose that  by  Juangs,  Andamanese,  Fuegians, 
Australians,  Tasmanians,  and  Bushmen,  the 
worship  of  inanimate  objects  was  carried  to  the 
greatest  extent ;  that  among  tribes  a  little 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  69. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  57 

advanced  in  intelligence  and  social  state,  it 
was  somewhat  restricted;  that  it  went  on 
decreasing,  as  knowledge  and  civilisation  in- 
creased ;  and  that  in  highly  developed  societies, 
such  as,  for  example,  those  of  ancient  Peru 
and  modern  India,  it  became  inconspicuous. 
Should  we  not  say  that  the  statement  (that 
fetish-worship  was  the  original  form  of  relig- 
ion) was  conclusively  proved?  Clearly  then, 
as  the  facts  happen  to  be  exactly  the  op- 
posite, the  statement  is  conclusively  dis- 
proved." l 

But  to  this  it  is  rejoined,  as  in  Professor 
Tiele's  second  argument  above  given,  that, 
nevertheless,  the  further  back  we  go  in  the 
history  of  mankind,  the  more  of  fetishism  and 
animism  we  discover ;  from  which  it  is  inferred 
that  animism,  —  if  not  indeed  something  still 
more  indefinite,  —  must  have  been  the  earliest 
form  of  religion.  Convincing  proof  of  this 
statement  we  have  failed  to  find ;  and  we  even 
believe  that  it  will  be  found  impossible  to  pro- 
duce it.  Professor  Tiele  refers,  indeed,  to  the 

1  "  Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  pp.  317,  318. 


58         GENESIS   AND    GROWTH    OF   RELIGION. 

case  of  the  Chinese,1  but  the  illustration  is 
unfortunate.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Edkins,  long  resi- 
dent in  China,  and  intimately  familiar  with 
the  Chinese  language  and  history,  in  his  "  Re- 
ligions of  China,"  speaking  of  a  reaction  among 
recent  Chinese  authors  against  mediaeval  phi- 
losophy, says  regarding  them  :  — 

"They  have  returned  to  an  older  system, 
which  regarded  the  personality  of  God  as  a  fun- 
damental point ;  and,  though  it  had  no  very 
distinct  view  on  the  subject  of  creation,  made 
such  statements  in  regard  to  the  Providence  of 
God,  as  to  show  that  the  early  Chinese  had 
conceptions  of  the  Divine  Being  far  in  advance 
of  most  pagan  nations." 2  He  adds  elsewhere 
that  "  the  intelligent  among  the  Chinese  .  .  . 
say  that  the  ancient  Chinese  were  undoubtedly 
more  religious  than  the  moderns." 3 

Moreover,  that  special  ceremonial  which  is 
acknowledged  to  be  the  most  ancient  of  all 
forms  of  worship  in  China,  is  precisely  that  in 
which  the  idea  of  a  personal  God,  the  Maker 

1  "  History  of  Religion,"  p.  8.  2  Op.  cit.  p.  53. 

8  Ib.  p.  91. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  59 

of  heaven  and  earth,  is  most  distinctly  and 
powerfully  suggested.  In  this  solemn  act  of  the 
worship  of  Heaven,  the  Emperor  alone  acts,  as 
the  representative  of  the  nation.  Three  times 
in  each  year,  he  performs  a  solemn  public  service 
to  the  Supreme  Spirit  of  Heaven  and  of  the 
Earth.  With  this,  it  is  indeed  true  that  an- 
cestor-worship, and  thus  a  worship  of  departed 
spirits,  also  appears,  even  in  the  most  ancient 
times ;  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence 
that  the  latter  was  the  origin  of  the  former. 

If,  leaving  China,  we  turn  to  India,  we  find 
that  the  facts  with  regard  ,to  the  religion  of 
the  Hindoos  tell  powerfully  against  the  theory 
of  the  derivation  of  all  religion  either  from  a 
primeval  fetishism  or  animism.  Of  both  fetish 
and  spirit  worship  there  is  much,  no  doubt, 
in  the  India  of  to-day,  even  among  the  Aryan 
Hindoos.  But  all  agree  that  this  is  a  late 
corruption  of  the  Hindoo  religion,  which  only 
came  in  long  after  the  entrance  of  the  Aryans 
into  India,  and  in  consequence  of  association 
with  the  fetish  and  demon  worshipping  abo- 
rigines whom  they  found  there.  The  earliest 


60         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

hymns  of  the  Vedas,  instead  of  exhibiting 
a  type  of  religious  belief  of  a  more  animistic 
character  than  that  which  now  prevails,  are 
distinguished  by  a  freedom  from  such  supersti- 
tions, and  an  elevation  of  religious  sentiment, 
for  which  we  may  seek  in  vain  in  the  religious 
literature  of  modern  Puranic  Hindooism.  There 
is  not  a  single  fact  to  show  that  the  progress 
of  religious  thought  in  India  has  been  upward 
from  an  early  fetishism  or  animism  to  a  more 
enlightened  type  of  faith,  but  the  exact  reverse.1 
But  we  are  reminded  that,  as  just  remarked, 
the  more  ancient ,  aboriginal  tribes  whom  the 
Hindoos  found  in  India  worshipped,  and  still 
worship,  various  spirits,  whose  power  they  dread, 
and  whom  they  seek  to  propitiate.  But  there 
are  well-attested  facts  which  forbid  us  to  sup- 
pose, as  Professor  Tiele's  theory  would  require, 
that  we  have  here  an  instance  of  the  survival 
to  modern  times  of  a  primitive  form  of  faith. 
The  Santals,  the  most  numerous  and  important 
of  these  aboriginal  tribes,  have  a  tradition, 
universally  accepted  by  them  as  true,  that  in 

1  For  a  fuller  exhibition  of  the  facts,  see  Lecture  VII. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  61 

the  beginning  they  were  not  worshippers  of 
demons  as  now.  They  say  that,  very  long  ago, 
their  first  parents  were  created  by  the  living 
God;  that  they  at  first  worshipped  and  served 
Him ;  that  they  were  seduced  from  their  alle- 
giance by  an  evil  spirit,  Marang  Burn,  who  per- 
suaded them  to  drink  an  intoxicating  liquor, 
made  from  the  fruit  of  a  certain  tree.  In 
consequence,  they  came  under  the  power  of 
the  Evil  Spirit,  and  hence,  from  that  time  until 
now,  have  had  to  worship  and  serve  him  and 
the  evil  demons  subject  to  him,  instead  of  the 
one  God  of  their  first  fathers.  That  this  re- 
markable tradition,  so  wonderfully  like  the 
Genesis  story,  can  have  been  derived  from  this, 
through  direct  or  indirect  communication  with 
Judaism  or  Christianity,  is  apparently,  in  this 
case,  out  of  the  question ;  for,  from  an  unknown 
antiquity,  the  Santals,  in  common  with  other 
cognate  non-Aryan  tribes,  holding  similar  tradi- 
tions, have  lived  in  the  mountains  and  jungles, 
far  off  the  lines  of  travel,  commerce,  and  con- 
quest. 

There   is   thus    decisive    reason    for   refusing 


62         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

to  regard  the  fetishism  and  polydemonism  of 
the  aborigines  of  India  as  a  survival  of  a  prim- 
itive cult.  These,  like  many  other  similar 
tribes  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  furnish  in 
their  ancient  traditions  a  weighty  argument, 
not  for,  but  against  Professor  Tiele's  theory 
of  a  primitive  animism,  or  that  of  an  original 
fetish-worship.  Instead  then  of  finding  a  sub- 
stantial basis  for  any  such  theory  of  the  origin 
of  religion  in  the  literature  and  traditions  of 
various  races,  the  more  that  these  are  known 
and  studied,  the  more  do  facts  appear  like  the 
above,  which  are  irreconcilable  with  its  truth. 
They  are  such  as  show,  to  use  the  words  of 
Professor  Max  Miiller,  that  "  the  history  of 
most  religions  might  be  called  a  corruption  of 
their  primitive  purity,"1  and  that  "fetishism 
is  really  the  very  last  stage  in  the  downward 
course  of  religion." 2 

Finally,  neither  the  fetish  nor  the  animistic 
theory  of  the  origin  of  religion,  if  assumed  as  an 
hypothesis,  accounts  for  those  phenomena  con- 

1  "  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  69. 

2  "Natural  Religion,"  p.  158. 


FETISHISM    AND    ANIMISM.  63 

nected  with  religion  which  most  imperatively 
demand  an  explanation.  It  is  said  that,  in  the 
primitive  savagery,  men  could  not  have  had 
the  idea  of  a  personal  God,  as  the  Creator  and 
the  moral  Governor  of  all,  and  of  their  relation 
to  Him,  as  dependent  and  responsible  beings. 
But  it  is  certain  that  they  have  it  now ;  and 
in  explanation  of  this,  we  are  told  that  relig- 
ion originated,  through  a  process  of  natural 
evolution,  from  a  primitive  fetishism  or  ani- 
mism ;  which,  again,  arose,  in  the  first  instance, 
as  the  result  of  an  ignorant  misinterpretation 
of  nature. 

But  how  is  it  possible  that  out  of  such  a 
chaos  of  crude  superstitions  as  is  described  by 
Tiele,  Pfleiderer,  and  others,  should  have  devel- 
oped the  ideas  of  responsibility,  and  of  sin, 
and  of  guilt  ?  Surely,  the  more  deeply  that  one 
thinks  what  is  involved  in  these  conceptions, 
the  more  insuperable  will  appear  the  difficulty 
of  supposing  that  religion  should  have  had 
such  an  origin  as  animism  or  fetish-worship. 


LECTURE  III. 

MR.    HERBERT     SPENCER'S     GHOST     THEORY    OF    THE 
ORIGIN    OF    RELIGION. 

THE  theories  of  an  original  fetishism,  or  a 
"chaotic  naturism,"  or  animism,  as  advocated 
respectively  by  Des  Brosses,  Pfleiderer,  Tiele, 
and  others,  we  have  seen  to  be  inadequate  to 
account  for  many  undoubted  phenomena  con- 
nected with  religion.  In  particular,  the  ex- 
planation of  the  supposed  primitive  animism, 
as  due  to  the  extreme  ignorance  of  the  first 
men,  who  mistakenly  ascribed  life  to  everything 
that  moved  or  exhibited  power,  postulates  a 
supposition  as  to  their  condition  which  to 
many  will  seem,  on  scientific  grounds,  more  diffi- 
cult of  acceptance  than  the  assumed  original 
animism  which  it  is  supposed  to  explain. 

Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  evidently  felt  this, 
and,  while  maintaining  that  the  original  form  of 
religion  must  have  been  the  worship  of  spirits, 
64 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.    65 

accounts  for  the  rise  of  this  spirit-worship  by  a 
theory  of  his  own,  which  he  has  worked  out, 
in  his  "  Principles  of  Sociology," 1  with  his 
accustomed  ability  and  ingenuity.  In  his 
"Essays,"  he  states  his  theory  of  the  origin  of 
religion  in  these  words : 2  "  The  rudimentary 
form  of  religion  is  the  propitiation  of  dead 
ancestors,  who  are  supposed  to  be  still  existing, 
and  to  be  capable  of  working  good  or  evil  to 
their  descendants."  But  it  is  evident  that  on 
this  theory  it  is  to  be  explained  how  men  first 
came  to  believe  that  those  of  their  ancestors 
who  were  dead,  were  still  existing.  This  belief 
Mr.  Spencer  has  sought  to  account  for  after 
the  following  manner. 

He  begins  with  the  conception  of  things  as 
visible  and  invisible.3  The  primitive  man 
observed,  for  instance,  that  clouds  and  stars 
appear  and  disappear;  the  same  is  true  of 
many  things.  He  observed,  moreover,  that 
what  is  invisible,  as,  for  example,  the  wind,  may 

1  Op.  cit.  vol.    i,  part   1.       The  references  hereinafter  made 
are  to  the  third  London  edition,  1885. 

2  "Essays,"  4th  ed.,  vol.  iii,  p.   102. 

3  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  pp.  105-108. 


66          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

yet  have  great  power.  Hence  arose,  first  of 
all,  the  concept  of  a  visible  and  an  invisible 
condition  of  existence ;  and,  along  with  this, 
the  recognition  of  the  fact  that,  in  some  cases, 
at  least,  that  which  is  invisible  may  have 
power.  And,  because  the  primitive  man  per- 
ceived that  many  things  have  a  visible  and  an 
invisible  state,  he  inferred  that  this  might  also 
be  true  of  even/thing. 

Again,  the  primitive  man  finds,  for  instance, 
a  fossil.  From  this  he  concludes  that  one  and 
the  self-same  substance  may  be  transmuted 
into  another,  having  entirely  different  proper- 
ties. Also,  he  sees  eggs  change  into  chickens, 
and  trees  come  out  of  seeds,  to  which  they 
bear  no  outward  resemblance.  He  therefore 
concludes,  again,  that  not  only  substance,  but 
form,  may  be  transmuted.  This  will  have  been 
confirmed  to  his  mind  by  the  observation  that 
certain  insects  and  reptiles  have  the  power  of 
changing  their  colour  and  form,  so  as  to  seem 
very  like  that  in  the  midst  of  which  they  lie. 

But  primitive  men  cannot  have  had  any 
generalised  knowledge.  Hence  there  can  have 


HEKBERT  SPENCER*  S  GHOST  THEORY.    67 

been  with  them  nothing  to  prevent  the  belief 
that  such  transformations  were  not  merely 
apparent,  but  real.1 

Such  a  belief  in  real  transformations  of  vari- 
ous objects,  as  regards  substance,  or  form,  or 
both,  having  been  thus  once  established,  it  will 
have  extended  itself  without  resistance  to  other 
classes  of  things.  That  is,  because  the  primi- 
tive man  observed  that  some  things  apparently 
become  other  things,  he  therefore  concluded 
that  anything  might  become  anything,  however 
unlike  itself;  for  —  to  use  Mr.  Spencer's  own 
illustration  —  "  the  tadpole,  with  a  tail  and  no 
limbs,  differs  from  the  young  frog,  with  four 
limbs  and  no  tail,  more  than  a  man  differs  from 
a  hyena;  for  both  of  these  have  four  limbs, 
and  both  laugh."  2  Hence  this  ancient  savage, 
at  this  stage  of  his  evolution,  reached  the 
extraordinary  conclusion  that  every  object  pre- 
sented to  his  senses  was  not  only  what  it  seemed 
to  be,  but,  potentially,  was  anything  else. 

Next   in   order,   we    are   told,   the   primitive 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  pp.  108-113. 

2  Ib.  p.  114. 


68         GENESIS   AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

man  will  have  applied  this  theory  of  things  to 
himself.  He  sees,  for  example,  his  own  shadow ; 
he  "  necessarily  concludes  the  shadow  to  be  an 
actual  existence,  which  belongs  to  the  person 
casting  it."  Yet  he  observes  that,  in  some 
cases,  a  shadow  is  to  a  certain  extent  separable 
from  that  of  which  it  is  the  shadow,  whence, 
now  beginning  to  generalise,  he  infers  that 
"  shadows  must  be  conceived  of  as  existences 
appended  to,  but  capable  of  separation  from, 
material  things."2  This  line  of  primitive 
argument  was  further  confirmed  by  the  obser- 
vation of  reflections  in  water,  and  by  echoes, 
etc.,  all  of  which  will  have  seemed,  to  the 
primitive  mind,  to  justify  the  notion  that  with 
every  existence  of  every  kind  is  associated  a 
second  existence,  visible  or  invisible.3 

Again,  as  the  primitive  man  could  not  have 
been  able  to  distinguish  real  from  apparent 
existence,  so  neither,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer, 
could  he  distinguish  with  any  certainty  the 
animate  from  the  inanimate.  Seeing  that 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  p.  115.  2  Ib.  p.  116. 

3  Ib.  vol.  i,  pp.  116-119. 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S  GHOST  THEORY.    69 

many  things  which  usually  appear  to  be  inani- 
mate, sometimes  act  as  if  they  were  alive,  and 
vice  versa,  he  will  naturally  have  concluded 
that  all  things  are  at  least  potentially  alive, 
even  shadows  and  reflections.1 

In  further  explication  of  the  evolution  of 
religion,  Mr.  Spencer  instances  the  phenomena 
of  dreams.  He  tells  us  that  the  primitive  man 
cannot  have  had  the  conception  of  mind,  by 
the  aid  of  which  we  are  able  to  explain  these.2 
What  then  could  he  do  but  suppose  that  the 
dream  was  a  reality,  in  the  same  sense  as  the 
experiences  of  his  waking  hours ;  that,  while 
asleep,  he  actually  went  where  he  dreamed  that 
he  went,  and  really  did  what  he  dreamed  that  he 
did,  and  so  on  ?  And,  since  he  had  not  yet  the 
conception  of  a  soul  within  him,  by  which  he 
might  have  sought  to  explain  how  he  —  who,  as 
his  fellows  will  have  told  him,  was  all  the  night 

1  This  confusion  of  the  living  and  the  not-living,  however,  in 
Mr.  Spencer's  opinion,  cannot  be  strictly  primary,  but  was  a 
result  of  man's  first  incipient  speculation,  —  of  a  "germinal 
error"  rising  out  of  experiences  which  masked  the  distinction 
between  animate  and  inanimate.  —  ''Principles  of  Sociology,"  ID. 
131.  See  also  the  whole  of  chap.  ix.  2  Ib.  p.  132. 


70          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

lying  in  the  same  place  —  might  also  yet  have 
been  elsewhere  in  the  spirit,  and  done  or  suf- 
fered what  he  dreamed  that  he  did  or  suffered,  — - 
what  could  the  poor  untaught  savage  do  but 
call  to  his  help  that  idea  of  the  essential  dual- 
ism of  all  things,  which  he  had  already  evolveS  ? 
Since  his  observations  of  dissolving  clouds,  and 
waning  moon  and  stars,  of  shadows  and  echoes, 
had  brought  him  to  believe  that  everything 
has  a  visible  and  an  invisible  state,  how  natural 
it  must  have  been  for  him  to  infer  that  he  too 
was  a  double  being,  with  a  visible  and  an 
invisible  self !  and  that  this  second  self  could 
become  visible  at  times,  and  while  the  visible 
self  was  quietly  sleeping,  could  go  and  do,  or 
suffer  or  enjoy,  all  that  he  dreamed  !  And  — 
continuing  this  very  primitive  reasoning  — 
how  natural,  again,  to  conclude  that  this 
invisible  self  must  be  that  same  existence,  his 
mysterious  double,  whom  he  often  sees  accom- 
panying him  in  the  form  of  a  shadow,  or  gazing 
at  him  out  of  the  depths  of  a  lake  !  And  how 
simply  this  at  once  explains  how  it  is  that, 
having  reached  the  conception  of  an  indwelling 


HERBERT    SPENCER'S    GHOST    THEORY.          71 

soul  in  this  fashion,  many  people  have  spoken  of 
the  disembodied  souls  as  " umbrae,"  "shades"! 
They  must  evidently,  once,  at  some  stage  of 
their  evolution,  have  conceived  of  the  soul  as 
a  shadow. 

In  illustration  of  these  so  grotesque  notions, 
Mr.  Spencer  gives  numerous  examples  of  such 
beliefs,  as,  e.g.,  from  the  ancient  Peruvians  and 
the  hill  tribes  of  Burmah,  who  are  said  to 
believe  that  in  sleep  the  soul  really  leaves  the 
body  and  goes  whither  it  will,  and  so  on. 

Occasional  instances  of  somnambulism  will 
no  doubt  have  confirmed  the  primitive  man  in 
his  beliefs  regarding  the  explanation  of  dreams. 
For  in  such  cases  the  sleeper  is  sometimes  found 
actually  doing  those  very  things  which  he 
dreamed  that  he  was  doing.  Such  phenomena, 
Mr.  Spencer  thinks,  will  probably  have  seemed 
decisive  evidence  to  primitive  men  that  men  do 
actually  go  away  during  their  sleep;  that  they 
really  do  in  their  sleep  what  they  dream  of 
doing,  and  may  on  such  occasions  even  some- 
times become  visible.  It  is  true,  as  Mr.  Spen- 
cer admits,  that  "  a  careful  examination  of  the 


72         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

facts  would  show  in  this  case  the  man's  body 
was  absent  from  its  place  of  rest."  But  to 
this  trifling  difficulty  he  thinks  it  quite  suffi- 
cient to  reply  that  "savages  do  not  carefully 
examine  the  facts."1 

This  brings  us  now  to  another  stage  in  the 
evolution  of  religion.2  Inasmuch  as  in  dreams 
the  sleeper  meets  with  various  people,  both 
living  and  dead,  he  will  have  naturally  inferred 
-  if  a  primitive  man  —  that  he  really  did  meet 
those  people,  and  that,  therefore,  not  only  he 
himself,  but  other  people  also  have  doubles  of 
themselves;  and — :  which  is  of  critical  impor- 
tance in  the  evolution  of  religion  —  that  the 
doubles  of  dead  men  may  and  do  sometimes 
appear  after  death  to  those  who  survive  them. 
Hence  dawned  in  the  mind  of  the  primitive  man 
the  notion  of  soul  as  distinct  from  the  body,3 
and  of  a  life  after  death  ;  and  as,  perhaps,  in  his 
sleep,  he  scalped  or  tortured  the  dead  men  who, 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  136. 

2  Ib.  chap.  x. 

8  "Dream  experiences  ...  are  the  experiences  out  of  which 
the  conception  of  a  mental  self  eventually  grows."  —  Ib.  p.  141. 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S  GHOST  THEORY.    73 


when  alive,  had  been  his  enemies,  and  had 
injured  him,  he  inferred  that,  in  that  future  life, 
there  might  be  rewards  and  retributions.1 

And  so  it  was,  Mr.  Spencer  argues,  that  man 
must  have  reached  at  last  the  idea  of  another 
and  invisible  self,  separable  from  the  body, 
which  exists  after  the  body  dies,  and  may  then 
appear  as  a  ghost,  and  in  that  post-mortem 
state  may  either  administer  or  receive  reward 
and  retribution.  And  this,  he  assures  us,  is 
the  very  earliest  and  most  rudimentary  idea 
which  man  must  have  had  of  a  God.  His 
words  are  as  follows:  — 

"  We  may  hold  it  as  settled  that  the  first 
traceable  conception  of  a  supernatural  being  is 
the  conception  of  a  ghost.  This  exists  where 
no  other  idea  of  the  same  order  exists ;  and 
this  exists  where  multitudinous  other  ideas  of 
the  same  order  exist."2 

That  is,  the  fact  that  the  belief  in  a  double 
of  a  man,  which  survives  death,  appears  both 
among  savages  and  among  the  most  highly 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  chaps,  xiv,  xv. 

2  Ib.  vol.  i,  p.  281. 


74          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

civilised  races,  is,  in  Mr.  Spencer's  judgment, 
of  such  decisive  significance  that  even  of  itself 
alone  it  is  almost  enough  to  prove  that  the 
ghost  must  have  been  the  primitive  type  of 
a  supernatural  being.  For,  "  whatever  is  com- 
mon to  men's  minds  in  all  stages,  must  be 
deeper  down  in  thought  than  whatever  is 
peculiar  to  men's  minds  in  higher  stages ;  and 
if  the  latter  product  admits  of  being  reached 
by  modification  and  expansion  of  the  earlier 
product,  the  implication  is  that  it  has  been  so 
reached."  1 

As  consequent  upon  the  above  evolution,  we 
are  then  told  that  it  would  follow  that  the 
men  who  had  known  a  dead  man  when  alive, 
would  desire  to  please  him  now  that  he  was 
gone,  and  to  propitiate  him,  if  offended.  Herein 
Mr.  Spencer  sees  the  origin  of  all  sacrifice,  and 
of  ritual  of  every  kind. 

Still  further,  it  is  plain  that,  the  more  pow- 
erful a  man  might  have  been  when  he  was 
alive,  the  more  power  would  his  ghost  be 
supposed  to  have  after  death.  And  inasmuch 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  p.  281. 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.    75 


as,  through  the  idea  which  the  child  has  of 
the  greatness  and  importance  of  its  parents, 
men  would  be  specially  inclined  to  worship 
them  after  death,  ancestor-worship  would  nat- 
urally arise  as  the  earliest  form  of  outward 
religion.  And  again,  among  departed  ances- 
tors, those  would  be  most  honoured  or  most 
feared,  who  had  been  persons  of  the  most  power 
for  good  or  evil  while  in  this  life ;  whence  the 
common  deification  of  dead  heroes,  kings, 
warriors,  and  such  like.  And,  as  the  years 
went  by,  the  conception  of  these  dead  men 
would  be  expanded  and  exaggerated,  till,  at 
last,  from  being  at  first  thought  of  as  very 
strong,  very  wise,  and  so  on,  they  would  be 
thought  of  as  being  a/Z-powerful,  a//-wise. 
And,  finally,  as  the  outcome  of  all,  we  should 
naturally  find  —  as  we,  in  fact,  he  says,  do  find 
—  that  men  would  at  last  come  to  worship 
the  supposed  first  ancestor  of  their  own  tribe, 
or  of  all  men,  as  being  the  supreme  God,  the 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth.1 

Such,    in  outline,   is    the    account  that    Mr. 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,'1  chap.  xx. 


76         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Spencer  gives  us  of  the  evolution  of  the  idea 
of  God,  and  of  the  origin  of  all  religion.  A 
shadow,  an  echo,  a  dream,  a  ghost,  a  God,  the 
Maker  of  heaven  and  earth,  and  Supreme  Ruler 
and  Judge  of  all  mankind  !  In  support  of  this 
theory  are  marshalled  a  great  number  of  illus- 
trations of  every  notion  to  which  reference 
has  been  made  ;  —  illustrations  drawn  from 
every  quarter  of  the  world,  from  all  races,  and 
all  ages  of  history.  Even  facts  which  at  first 
sight  might  seem  to  be  at  variance  with  his 
theory,  Mr.  Spencer  presses  into  the  service 
of  his  remarkable  argument  to  prove  that  the 
idea  of  a  God  of  all  the  earth  was  developed 
from  the  observation  of  a  shadow  !  Thus,  in 
many  parts  of  the  world  we  find  fetish-worship, 
which  other  philosophers  have  supposed  to  be 
the  original  form  of  religion.  But  fetish- wor- 
ship Mr.  Spencer  regards  as  a  secondary 
development,  easily  explained  on  his  theory,  as 
simply  an  aberrant  development  of  ancestor- 
worship.1  The  spirit,  supposed  to  be  resident 

1  "Fetish-worship  is  the  worship  of  a  special  soul  supposed  to 
have  taken  up  its  residence  in  the  fetish ;  which  soul,  in  common 


HERBERT    SPENCER'S    GHOST    THEORY.          77 


in  the  fetish,  is  an  ancestral  ghost  whose 
special  personality,  through  lapse  of  time,  has 
been  forgotten,  and  which  is  believed  to  have 
taken  up  its  abode  in  the  fetish.  As  for  nature- 
worship,  in  which  others  have  thought  they 
saw  the  original  form  of  religion,  this  also  he 
seeks  to  account  for,  on  his  theory,  as  a 
development  of  ancestor-worship.  His  words 
are:  — 

"  When  it  marks  the  place  whence  the  race 
came,  a  mountain  is  described  in  tradition  as 
the  parent  of  the  race,  as  is  probably  the 
sea,  in  some  cases ;  and  bojbh  also  give  family 
names :  worship  of  them  as  ancestors  thus 
arising  in  two  ways.  Facts  imply  that  the 
conception  of  the  dawn  as  a  person,  results 
from  the  giving  of  Dawn  as  a  birth-name.  .  .  . 
The  moon  is  still  a  source  of  birth-names  among 
the  uncivilised :  the  implication  being  that 
reverence  for  it,  is  reverence  for  a  departed 
person.  .  .  .  Lastly,  worship  of  the  sun  is 
derived  in  two  ways  from  ancestor-worship. 

with  supernatural  agents  at  large,  is  originally  the  double  of  a  dead 
man."  — "Principles  of  Sociology,1'  vol.  i,  pp.  313,  314. 


78         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Here,  conquerors,  coming  from  the  region  of 
sunrise,  and  therefore  called  children  of  the  sun, 
come  to  regard  the  sun  as  their  ancestor ;  and 
there,  Sun  is  either  a  birth-name  or  a  metaphor- 
ical name,  given  because  of  personal  appear- 
ance, or  because  of  achievements,  or  because 
of  exalted  position :  whence  identification  with 
the  sun  in  tradition,  and  consequent  sun-wor- 
ship." 1 

Such,  then,  is  Mr.  Spencer's  theory  as  to  the 
origin  of  religion,  and  such  the  argument,  in 
brief,  by  which  he  supports  it.  Against  theory 
and  argument  stand  the  following  considera- 
tions. 

We  have  to  notice,  in  the  first  place,  that 
Mr.  Spencer  tells  us  at  the  beginning  of  his 
argument  that  we  shall  not  be  able  to  deter- 
mine the  truth  as  to  the  original  faith  of  man 
on  the  inductive  method.  He  says  that  we 
cannot  settle  the  question  as  to  what  were  the 
religious  ideas  of  the  primitive  man,  by  merely 
taking  the  lowest  types  of  men  known  to  us, 
and  assuming  that  their  ideas,  if  not  primitive, 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,11  pp.  419,  420. 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S  GHOST  THEORY.    79 

are,  at  least,  very  like  primitive  ideas.  For 
this  would  be  to  assume  that  in  these  inferior 
races  we  had  examples  of  men  still  in  the 
primitive  state ;  whereas  there  is  not  a  little 
evidence  to  show  that  many,  at  least,  of  these 
savage  tribes  —  in  whom  many  have  supposed 
that  they  had  before  them  types  of  primitive 
men  —  are  not  developments,  but  degradations 
from  higher  forms.  His  words  deserve  to  be 
noted :  — 

"  To  determine  what  conceptions  are  truly 
primitive  would  be  easy,  if  we  had  accounts 
of  truly  primitive  men.  But  there  are  sundry 
reasons  for  suspecting  that  existing  men  of  the 
lowest  types  ...  do  not  exemplify  men  as 
they  originally  were.  Probably  most  of  them1 
had  ancestors  in  higher  states.  ...  It  is  pos- 
sible, and,  I  believe,  probable,2  that  retrogres- 
sion has  been  as  frequent  as  progression."  3 

Here,  then,  is  indeed  an  emergency.  It  is 
required,  in  the  name  of  exact  science  and  after 

1  In  an  earlier  edition  followed  here  the  words,  "if  not  all  of 
them." 

2  In  the  earlier  edition  he  wrote,  "  highly  probable." 

3  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  93. 


80         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

its  method,  to  ascertain  and  represent  the  facts 
as  to  the  origin  of  religion.  Mr.  Spencer's  evo- 
lutionary philosophy  compels  him  to  assume  that 
those  ideas  must  have  been  most  vague  and  rudi- 
mentary ;  that  man  did  not  begin  his  existence 
as  a  moral  agent  with  the  idea  of  God,  but 
gradually  evolved  it,  and  therewith  grew  into 
a  moral  agent.  For  if  man  came  into  existence 
exclusively  by  means  of  natural  processes,  in  the 
way  of  natural  descent,  as  is  supposed  by  Mr. 
Darwin  and  Mr.  Spencer,  then  it  would  appear 
certain  that  the  original  mammal,  —  Professor 
Haeckel's  hypothetical  Piihecanthropos,  or 
whatever  it  was,  —  which  was  the  immediate 
ancestor  of  man  as  we  know  him,  could  not  all 
at  once  have  risen  to  the  idea  of  a  First  Cause 
and  Moral  Ruler  of  the  universe.  Hence,  facts 
are  needed  which  shall  show  us  how  this  won- 
derful evolution  of  religion  and  of  moral  agency 
proceeded.  But,  unfortunately,  such  facts  re- 
garding primitive  man,  according  to  Mr.  Spen- 
cer, are  wanting,  and  are  likely  to  remain  so. 
The  situation,  then,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
proposed  investigation,  is  embarrassing.  On 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S  GHOST  THEORY.    81 

the  one  hand,  is  Mr.  Spencer's  philosophy, 
which  compels  him  to  assume  that  man  must 
have  come  up  from  a  condition  of  mere  animal- 
ity  by  a  purely  natural  process  of  development. 
On  the  other  hand,  are  stubborn  facts  which 
constrain  Mr.  Spencer  candidly  to  confess  that 
"  most  of  existing  savage  races  have  had  an- 
cestors in  higher  states." 

Here,  truly,  is  a  serious  difficulty.  On  the 
one  hand,  is  a  certain  evolutionary  theory  as 
to  the  origin  of  man  and  his  primitive  condi- 
tion ;  on  the  other  hand,  stand  a  large  number 
of  ascertained  facts  which  appear  to  be  adverse 
to  that  theory.  Yet  the  difficulty  is  not  irre- 
movable. By  simply  calling  to  our  aid  an 
a  priori  hypothesis,  it  may  be  made  to  dis- 
appear. Mr.  Spencer  tells  us  that,  however 
difficult  it  may  be,  we  must  endeavour  to  form 
some  conception  of  what  the  primitive  man 
must  have  been,  and  we  shall  then  be  able  to 
form  some  trustworthy  conception  of  what  must 
have  been  his  primitive  ideas.  This  may  indeed 
be  difficult ;  but  Mr.  Spencer  has  encourage- 
ment for  us.  He  says  :  — 


82          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

"  The  doctrine  of  evolution  will  help  us  to 
delineate  primitive  ideas  in  some  of  their  leading 
traits.  Having  inferred,  a  priori,  the  char- 
acters of  those  ideas,  we  shall  be,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, prepared  to  realise  them  in  imagination, 
and  then  to  discern  them  as  actually  existing." 1 

This  is  certainly  candid  and  clear ;  whether 
the  proposed  method  be  strictly  scientific,  is 
another  question.  That  method  is,  in  a  word, 
as  follows  :  first  form  the  conception  of  what 
the  primitive  man  must  have  been,  according 
to  the  principles  of  the  Spencerian  philosophy, 
and  then  seek  f or  facts  in  nature  and  history 
which  may  be  used  to  confirm  the  truth  of  that 
conception. 

This  hypothetical  primitive  man  is  described 
by  Mr.  Spencer  in  the  following  language :  — 

"  The  primitive  man  does  not  distinguish 
natural  from  unnatural,  possible  from  impos- 
sible, knows  nothing  of  physical  law,  order, 
cause,  etc. ;  .  .  .  he  lacks  fit  words  for  carrying 
on  inquiry,  as  well  as  the  requisite  power  of 
continued  thinking.  We  see  that,  instead  of 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  97. 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S  GHOST  THEORY.    83 

being  a  speculator  and  maker  of  explanations, 
he  is  at  first  an  almost  passive  recipient  of  con- 
clusions forced  on  him.  Further,  we  find  that 
he  is  inevitably  betrayed  into  an  initial  error, 
and  that  this  originates  an  erroneous  system 
of  thought  which  elaborates  as  he  advances. ": 

On  these  postulates  as  to  the  condition  and 
character  of  primitive  man,  Mr.  Spencer  bases 
his  argument  as  to  the  origin  of  religion  as 
given  above.  If  ever  there  was  such  a  being 
as  Mr.  Spencer's  a  priori  primitive  man,  then 
his  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  religion  might 
possibly  be  true ;  if  not,  th,en  the  theory  falls 
to  the  ground.  But  to  assume  the  original 
existence  of  such  a  being,  is  to  beg  the  whole 
question  at  issue.  For  the  point  in  debate 
between  Mr.  Spencer  and  Christian  thinkers, 
is  just  this :  Did  man  begin  his  existence 
with  the  idea  of  God,  correct,  although  unde- 
veloped, or  did  he  only  attain  this  by  slow 
degrees  ?  But  since  the  idea  of  God  involves 
the  idea  of  a  First  Cause,  Mr.  Spencer,  in 
assuming  that  the  first  man  could  not  have 

1  ;'  Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  13. 


84         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

had  the  idea  of  cause,  assumes  that  he  could 
not  have  had  the  idea  of  God,  and  that  hence 
he  did  not  have  it.  This,  we  repeat,  assumes 
in  advance  the  question  in  debate. 

Here  we  might  be  content  to  rest  the  whole 
case  as  regards  Mr.  Spencer's  argument,  until 
some  one  shall  have  furnished  the  proof  that 
ever  on  earth  there  existed  such  a  race  of  idiots 
as  the  Spencerian  "primitive  men."  Mean- 
while, we  have  the  highest  scientific  authority 
for  saying  that .  all  facts  hitherto  discovered 
point  the  other  way.1  Even  Mr.  Spencer  is 
not  far  from  admitting  this. 

To  all  this  it  will  no  doubt  be  rejoined  by 
many,  that  Mr.  Spencer  is  justified  in  assuming 
the  existence  of  such  a  being  as  his  hypothetical 
first  man,  on  the  ground  that  the  origin  of  man 
by  evolution  from  lower  orders  of  the  animal 
kingdom  must  now  be  regarded  as  accepted 
scientific  fact.  But  to  this  we  reply  that  if  by 
the  evolution  of  man  is  meant  that,  as  regards 
the  totality  of  his  nature,  and  all  of  his  faculties, 
man  was  the  resultant,  solely,  of  very  gradual 

1  See  Professor  Virchow's  recent  testimony,  cited  above,  pp.  30,  31. 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S  GHOST  THEORY.    85 

natural  processes,  then  we  deny  that  it  is  true 
that  this  theory  of  man's  origin  can  be  justly 
regarded  as  finally  settled  scientific  truth.  By 
Professor  Virchow,  it  is  emphatically  declared 
to  be  not  proved;  by  Mr.  Alfred  Russell  Wal- 
lace, such  a  theory  is  declared  to  be  absolutely 
irreconcilable  with  indisputable  facts  regarding 
man's  faculties  as  compared  with  those  of  the 
inferior  animals.1 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  by  this  assertion  it 
is  only  meant  that  it  is  now  very  generally 
agreed  that  man,  as  regards  certain  parts  of  his 
complex  nature,  is  connected  by  natural  descent 
with  the  higher  orders  of  the  animal  kingdom, 
the  assumption  of  this  as  a  fact  gives  no  ade- 
quate ground  for  assuming  such  a  primitive 
man  as  Mr.  Spencer  exhibits  to  us.  For  if  this 
is  all  that  is  intended  by  the  phrase  "  the  evo- 
lution of  man,"  then,  as  remarked  before,  there 
is  in  this  nothing  which  excludes  the  supposi- 
tion, that  in  order  to  the  origination  of  man, 
a  Power  exterior  and  superior  to  nature  inter- 
posed, as  Mr.  Wallace  maintains ;  in  which  case 

iVid.  sup.  pp.  35-38. 


86         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

it  is  plain  that  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
the  first  man  must  have  been  a  creature  of  such 
a  low  order  as  Mr.  Spencer  assumes.  If  not, 
certainly,  in  attainment,  yet  in  endowment  and 
faculty,  he  may  easily  have  been  altogether  the 
equal  of  the  men  of  to-day ;  even  as  is  indicated 
by  the  earliest  crania  yet  discovered. 

All  the  facts  ascertained  up  to  the  present 
day  tend  to  show  that  man  appeared  suddenly 
upon  the  planet,  and  then  not  as  a  muttering 
man-monkey,  but,  in  all  essential  particulars, 
as  really  and  truly  a  man  as  the  man  of  to-day. 
There  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence  that  such  a 
creature  as  this  hypothetical  man  ever  existed, 
except  in  the  dreams  of  the  modern  naturalistic 
evolutionist  philosophy. 

But,  again,  in  Mr.  Spencer's  argument  it  is 
assumed  that  there  are  no  innate  ideas ;  that 
the  notions  of  cause,  responsibility,  etc.,  and 
all  other  so-called  intuitive  ideas,  are  the  prod- 
uct of  experience.  Even  if  true,  this  would 
not  be  self-evident ;  a  multitude  of  the  world's 
deepest  thinkers  have  believed  that  there  was 
abundant  evidence  that  these  ideas  are  innate 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.    87 

and  intuitive.  If  such  as  these  have  been  right, 
then  it  is  certain  that  there  was  something  in 
the  constitution  of  the  primitive  man,  no  less 
than  in  our  own,  in  virtue  of  which  he  naturally 
and  necessarily  conceived  of  things  in  the  rela- 
tion of  cause  and  effect.  To  build  up  a  theory 
to  account  for  the  origin  of  religion,  and  leave 
out  of  consideration  the  idea  of  cause,  as  of 
necessity  involved,  explicitly  or  implicitly,  in 
all  thinking,  is  not  permissible.  For  no  one 
is  able  to  adduce  a  single  instance  of  a  people 
so  low  that  they  have  not  exhibited  the  causal 
judgment  in  full  operation.  It  constantly  ap- 
pears that,  however  crude  and  erroneous  notions 
any  people  may  have  as  to  the  nature  of  God, 
they  are  constrained  to  believe  in  His  existence, 
in  part,  at  least,  because  compelled  to  believe 
that  every  event  must  have  an  adequate  cause. 
There  are  absolutely  no  facts  to  sustain  Mr. 
Spencer's  allegation  that  the  primitive  man 
knew  nothing  of  cause. 

It  is  another  remarkable  and  most  suggestive 
fact  that,  in  Mr.  Spencer's  elaboration  of  his 
theory  as  to  the  origin  of  religion,  he  has 


88         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

practically  ignored  the  phenomena  exhibited 
in  man's  consciousness  of  sin.  One  might 
almost  imagine  that  he  had  never  heard  that 
any  race  of  men  believed  in  such  a  reality  as 
sin.  The  index  of  his  "  Sociology "  is  exceed- 
ingly full  and  satisfactory,  filling  fourteen  finely 
printed  pages,  but  we  have  not  found  the  word 
"  sin  "  or  any  of  its  equivalents  in  any  of  those 
pages !  But  this  is  not  surprising ;  for  he  has 
constructed  his  whole  theory  of  the  origin  of 
religion,  without  any  serious  reference  to  this 
omnipresent  and  very  solemn  fact  of  man's 
consciousness  of  sin ;  although  it  is  an  element 
which  appears  even  in  the  lowest  types  of 
religion ! 

This  omission  is  specially  noticeable  in  his 
account  of  the  origin  of  sacrifices.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  notorious  facts  connected  with 
the  customs  of  men  concerning  sacrifice,  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  these  stand  more  or  less 
distinctly  connected  with  ideas  of  placation 
and  propitiation.  It  is  indeed  true  that  Mr. 
Spencer,  in  this  connection,  freely  uses  the 
words  "propitiate"  and  "propitiation";  but 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.    89 

it  is  plain  that  he  does  not  use  these  words 
in  their  ordinary  sense.  For  example,  he 
illustrates  the  nature  of  "propitiation"  by 
"the  wish  to  do  that  which  a  lately  deceased 
parent  is  known  to  have  desired."  We  sub- 
mit that  in  such  desire  there  is  nothing  of 
the  sentiment  which  we  connect  with  the 
word  "  propitiation  "  :  that  the  word  invariably 
connotes  the  idea  of  displeasure  or  wrath  in 
the  person  to  be  propitiated,  which  by  the 
propitiation  it  is  sought  to  remove.  Sacrificial 
rites,  if  not  universally,  yet  very  extensively, 
rest  upon  the  assumption,  more  or  less  distinctly 
made,  that,  in  man's  relation  to  the  supernatural 
Power,  or  powers,  to  whom  the  sacrifice  is  offered, 
there  is  something  wrong,  something,  at  least, 
which  needs  improvement.  The  failure  to 
account  for  this  and  other  common  phenomena 
connected  with  man's  sense  of  sin,  is  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  defects  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
argument.  To  attempt  to  construct  a  theory 
of  the  origin  of  religion,  and  omit  to  grapple 
earnestly  with  the  facts  regarding  sin,  as  he 
has  done,  is  very  much  as  if  a  man  should 


90         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

construct  a  theory  of  the  heavens  with  no 
special  reference  to  the  law  of  gravitation. 
Such  attempts  have  indeed  been  made  in  the 
region  of  physical  science,  but  they  have  led 
to  no  valuable  result,  and  are  interesting  chiefly 
as  evidence  of  the  ingenuity  of  the  men  who 
made  them. 

It  is  another  grave  defect  in  Mr.  Spencer's 
theory  that  it  fails  to  account  for  the  whole 
content  of  the  idea  of  God.  It  does  not  show 
us  how  the  conception  of  a  self-existent  First 
Cause,  —  which,  according  to  Mr.  Spencer,  man 
did  not  have  at  first,  —  could  possibly  be  devel- 
oped out  of  the  idea  of  a  shadow  or  a  ghost. 
He  tells  us,  indeed,  that  "no  other  causes  for 
(unexpected)  changes  are  known  or  can  be  con- 
ceived "  by  the  primitive  man ;  and  therefore  he 
reasoned  that  "  the  souls  of  the  dead  must  be 
the  causes." 1  But  this  assertion  needs  to  be 
proved;  and  until  proved,  what  right  has  Mr. 
Spencer  to  say  that  the  primitive  man  did  not 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  217.  This  seems  curi- 
ously inconsistent  with  the  statement  above  cited  (p.  82)  that  the 
primitive  man  could  not  have  had  the  idea  of  cause. 


HERBERT    SPENCER'S    GHOST    THEORY.         91 

and  could  not  conceive  of  any  cause  of  the 
phenomena  of  the  universe,  of  which  these 
souls  were  parts,  other  than  the  souls  them- 
selves ? 

Again  the  conception  of  a  God,  as  we  have 
it,  also  includes  the  conception  of  a  Power  to 
which  we  are  responsible  and  which  we  have 
displeased,  and  which  therefore  requires  to  be 
propitiated.  How  could  these  ideas,  again,  of 
responsibility,  sin,  and  propitiation,  be  devel- 
oped out  of  one's  relations  to  a  ghost  or  a 
shadow  ?  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  show  us.  He 
teaches,  indeed,  that  propitiatory  rites  had  their 
origin  in  funeral  ceremonies,  designed  to  se- 
cure the  favour  of  dead  ancestors,  "  conceived 
chiefly  as  the  causers  of  evils  "  ; l  but  he  does 
not  seem  to  see  that  this  leaves  unexplained 
the  very  thing  which  most  needed  explanation ; 
namely,  why  it  should  ever  have  occurred  to 
men  that  the  spirit  of  a  dead  friend  would  be 
likely  to  injure  them.  Rather  should  we  infer 
that  they  would  naturally  have  thought  of  a 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  277.  See  the  whole  of 
chap.  xix. 


92          GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

departed  father  or  mother,  for  instance,  as  still 
cherishing  the  former  parental  love. 

Mr.  Spencer  has  indeed  made  a  very  extensive 
collation  of  facts  which  he  claims  as  substan- 
tiating his  theory  as  to  the  origin  of  religion. 
We  cannot  here  review  them  in  detail,  but 
only  remark  that,  however  many  of  these  facts 
may  be  consistent  with  his  theory,  they  are 
no  less  easily  accounted  for  in  other  ways ; 
while,  besides  those  which  he  adduces,  there 
are  many  other  facts,  to  some  of  which  we  shall 
have  occasion  to  advert,  which  are  utterly  irrec- 
oncilable with  his  theory. 

Once  again,  if  Mr.  Spencer  is  right  in  assum- 
ing that  the  worship  of  a  personal  God  is  every- 
where and  always  a  development  from  a  prior 
ancestor-worship,  then  it  is  plain  that  the  lower 
the  moral  and  intellectual  state  of  any  people, 
the  less  and  less  distinct  we  ought  to  find  the 
idea  of  God ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  wor- 
ship of  ancestors  should  be  by  so  much  the  more 
prominent.  So  also  it  should  follow,  if  Mr. 
Spencer's  theory  were  true,  that,  everywhere,  the 
more  ancient  a  people,  —  in  other  words,  the 


HERBERT  SPENCER' S"  GHOST  THEORY.    93 

nearer  we  approach  to  the  days  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
primitive  man,  —  the  more  we  should  see  of 
ancestor-worship,  and  the  less  of  the  recognition 
and  worship  of  God. 

It  is  indeed  true  that  history  presents  many 
instances  in  which  men  after  their  death  have 
come  to  be  regarded  as  gods.  Such  was  the 
case  with  the  Buddha,  with  Ram  and  Krishna, 
in  India,  and  with  many  others  in  other  lands. 
But  such  instances  of  the  deification  of  dead 
men  do  not  occur  under  such  uniform  conditions 
as  we  should  expect  to  find,  if  ancestor-worship 
were  in  reality  the  original  form  of  all  worship 
and  all  religion. 

It  is  not  true,  in  the  first  place,  that  as  a  rule 
it  is  the  most  degraded  tribes  who  are  most 
given  to  the  worship  of  ancestors.  Neither  is 
it  true  that  among  such  the  idea  of  God  is 
always  dim  in  proportion  to  the  development 
of  ancestor-worship.  Mr.  Spencer  indeed  gives 
abundant  evidence  that  tribes  of  a  low  rank  are 
often  addicted  to  ancestor-worship.  But  this 
fact,  of  itself,  proves  nothing  to  the  purpose. 
Such  instances  can  be  just  as  readily  accounted 


94         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

for  on  the  Christian  belief,  that  there  has  been 
in  such  cases  a  degradation  from  an  earlier  con- 
ception of  God.  Mr.  Spencer  needed  to  show 
that  the  worship  of  ancestors  has  been  the  uni- 
versal historical  antecedent  of  the  worship  of 
God.  This  he  has  not  proved,  and  —  we  vent- 
ure to  add  —  it  cannot  be  proved.  The  rea- 
soning by  which  Mr.  Spencer  attempts  to  prove 
it,  is  sufficiently  remarkable  to  deserve  notice. 
It  may  be  put,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  in  the 
form  of  a  syllogism,  thus  :  — 

"The  feeling  out  of  which  worship  grows 
up,  must  be  a  feeling  which  is  common  to  all 
men ;  the  dread  of  ghosts  is  a  feeling  common 
to  all  men,  while  the  fear  of  God  is  not.  There- 
fore the  dread  of  ghosts  must  be  the  feeling 
out  of  which  the  worship  of  God  must  have 
grown."  Which  reminds  one  of  the  formula  of 
erroneous  logic :  "  All  A  is  B ;  but  all  C  is  B : 
therefore,  all  C  is  A."  l 

Again,  instead  of  its  being  true  that  there 
are  tribes  who  worship  ghosts  or  the  spirits 
of  their  ancestors,  but  have  not  yet  reached 

i  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  281. 


HERBERT    SPENCER'S    GHOST    THEORY.         95 

the  idea  of  God,  as  remarked  in  the  previous 
lecture,  it  cannot  be  shown  that  anywhere  there 
is  a  tribe  so  degraded  as  not  to  have,  in  some 
form  or  other,  the  idea  of  a  God,  quite  distinct 
from  the  ordinary  objects  of  their  worship. 
Dr.  Livingstone  assures  us  that  "there  is  no 
need  of  beginning  to  tell  the  most  degraded 
of  the  people  of  South  Africa  of  the  existence  of 
God  or  of  a  future  state,  both  these  facts  being 
universally  admitted."  The  Rev.  J.  Leighton 
Wilson,  long  a  missionary  on  the  west  coast  of 
Africa,  gives  the  same  testimony  as  to  the 
degraded  natives  of  that  part  of  Africa. 

Even  if,  however,  we  should  admit  the  exist- 
ence, here  and  there,  of  tribes  who  have  no 
conception  of  God,  as  a  certified  fact,  it  would 
prove  nothing  as  to  the  truth  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
theory  as  to  the  origin  of  religion.  It  would, 
no  doubt,  be  consistent  with  it,  if  true ;  but 
it  would  be  equally  consistent  with  the  suppo- 
sition that  man  began  his  history  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  God,  which  such  tribes  have  lost.  We 
must  not  forget  that  Mr.  Spencer  himself 
concedes  that  "most  savage  tribes  have  had 
ancestors  in  higher  states." 


96         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Mr.  Spencer  quotes,  indeed,  asserted  instances 
of  tribes  who  have  not  even  a  name  for  God ; 
as,  e.g.,  Indians  found  in  1776  by  Father 
Serrain  about  San  Francisco  Bay,  and  certain 
South  American  tribes ;  and  refers  also  to  the 
well-known  assertions  of  Sir  John  Lubbock  on 
this,  point,  though  with  a  hesitating  endorse- 
ment.1 

For  such  hesitation  there  is  indeed  good 
reason.  For  no  one  who  has  had  any  expe- 
rience in  endeavouring  to  communicate  on  the 
subject  of  religion  with  a  strange  people,  and 
that  in  an  unfamiliar  language,  will  be  disposed 
to  accept  such  statements  as  true,  except  after 
the  most  searching  investigation,  of  which,  in 
this  case,  we  have  no  evidence.  Misapprehen- 
sions of  fact  in  regard  to  this  matter  have 
been  so  very  numerous,  as  to  call  for  the 
utmost  care  in  the  weighing  of  testimony. 
Professor  Flint  has  criticised  a  large  number 
of  such  statements  concerning  various  tribes, 
and  has  shown  conclusively  that  the  testimony 
on  which  these  rest  was  either  erroneous,  or, 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  281. 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.      97 

in  other  cases,  has  been  misunderstood.1  It 
is  not  by  such  a  smattering  of  a  savage  tongue 
as  a  sea-captain  may  casually  pick  up,  or  a 
passing  traveller  in  a  foreign  land  may  gain, 
that  one  becomes  able  to  gain  accurate 
information  as  to  the  religious  opinions  of  a 
savage  people.  The  testimony  of  such  men, 
therefore,  as  Captain  Cook,  who  is  quoted  as 
authority  by  Mr.  Spencer  as  to  the  religious 
beliefs  of  the  Fuegians,  is  by  no  means  to  be 
accepted  without  hesitation.2  In  like  manner, 
Sir  John  Lubbock  quotes  a  certain  Mr.  Jukes 
as  authority  for  the  assertion  that  the  natives 
of  the  Dalyrymple  Islands  are  atheists,  but  it 
appears  that  this  Mr.  Jukes  —  an  honest  man, 
no  doubt  —  was  only  one  day  on  the  island; 
nor  is  his  testimony  more  than  negative,  to 
the  effect  that  in  that  one  day  he  was  not 
able  to  discover  among  the  natives  any  trace 
of  a  belief  in  a  God. 

Among  civilised  peoples,  the  facts  tell  power- 
fully against  Mr.  Spencer's  theory.     In  no  land 

1  See  "  Antitheistic  Theories,"  Notes  xxvi-xxxi,  pp.  259-281. 
-  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  p.  316. 

v  \ 


98         GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

is  the  worship  of  ancestors  more  extensively 
practised  than  in  China,  and  we  have  the 
advantage  of  being  able  to  trace  the  religious 
history  of  China  with  confidence  to  a  very 
remote  period.  But,  in  the  earliest  period  of 
which  authentic  Chinese  records  tell  us,  the 
worship  of  Heaven  was  co-existing  with  that  of 
ancestors.  Dr.  Edkins  tells  us  that,  along  with 
this  ancestor-worship,  the  Chinese  have  had  the 
tradition  of  one  Supreme  Ruler  "  from  the 
earliest  period  of  their  history."1  There  is  no 
evidence  that  the  idea  of  God  was  any  less 
distinct,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  wor- 
ship of  ancestors  was  any  more  prominent,  in 
the  earliest  ages  of  Chinese  history  than  at 
present.  Whether  it  be  true  or  not  that  the 
ancient  Chinese  worship  of  Heaven  was  in 
reality  the  worship  of  the  one,  true,  invisible, 
God  —  a  point  on  which  the  authorities  differ 
—  there  is  no  evidence  that  this  worship  of 
Heaven  was  an  evolution  from  a  primitive  wor- 
ship of  ancestors. 

Of  a  similar   character   in  their  bearing  on 

1  "  Religions  of  China,"  p.  95. 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.    99 

the  argument  of  Mr.  Spencer,  are  the  facts  as 
regards  the  religious  history  of  India.  The 
deification  and  worship  of  dead  men  is  indeed 
very  common  in  modern  India ;  but  it  is  the 
fact,  which  Mr.  Spencer  ought  to  know  as  well 
as  any  one,  that,  the  further  one  goes  back 
in  the  history  of  the  religions  of  India,  the  less 
there  is  of  this  ghost  and  ancestor-worship, 
and  the  clearer  and  more  frequent  is  the  recog- 
nition of  one  God,  the  Father  of  all  and  the 
Giver  of  all  good.  And  when  we  go  back  to 
the  days  most  remote  in  antiquity,  before  the 
Vedas  were  written,  when  the  whole  Indo- 
Germanic  race  were  living,  as  yet  undivided, 
on  the  plains  of  Iran,  we  find  that  at  that 
time  there  was  no  such  state  of  things  as  Mr. 
Spencer's  theory  would  require.  There  was  not 
more  of  the  worship  of  ghosts  and  ancestors 
then  than  in  Vedic  and  post-Vedic  days ;  but, 
as  Professor  Fairbairn  has  shown,  more  clearly 
recognised  then  than  ever  since,  was  the  idea 
of  one  Supreme  Being,  the  Father  of  all  and 
the  Lord  of  the  conscience,  Dyauspitar,  the 
"Heaven-father,"  —  a  "Person,  whose  <thou' 


100      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

stood  over  against  the  6 1 '  '  of  the  worshipper, 
and  that  "  no  ghost  of  a  dead  ancestor  seen  in 
feverish  dreams !  "* 

Yet  another  pertinent  illustration  of  our 
argument  is  afforded  by  the  history  of  ancient 
Egypt.  The  primitive  religion  of  Egypt  pre- 
sents to  Mr.  Spencer's,  as  to  every  false  theory 
of  the  history  of  religion,  a  most  decisive  and 
fatal  test.  The  wonderful  progress  made  of 
late  years  in  the  discovery  and  decipherment 
of  the  literary  remains  of  that  most  ancient 
people,  enables  us  to  speak  with  assured  confi- 
dence. And  what  is  the  testimony  of  those 
venerable  authorities  ?  Was  ancestor-worship 
first,  and  was  the  idea  of  God  a  late  develop- 
ment ?  Assuredly  not !  In  contradiction  to  the 
assertions  of  Professor  Tiele,  and  regardless  of 
the  exigencies  of  Mr.  Spencer's  theory  of 
religious  evolution,  M.  Eenouf,  in  the  Hibbert 
Lectures  for  1879,  has  shown  most  conclusively 
that  the  earliest  form  of  Egyptian  religion  was 
monotheistic.  Detailed  proof  of  this  statement 
may  be  reserved  for  a  subsequent  lecture.2  It 

1  "  Studies  in  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,"  p.  43,  Amer.  ed. 

2  Lecture  VII. 


HERBERT    SPENCER\S  •  &il<!)ST    THEORY.       101 

will  be  sufficient  here  to  refer  in  a  general 
way  to  the  testimony  of  this  eminent  Egyptolo- 
gist, that,  although  in  Egyptian  literature  there 
are  frequent  references  to  various  gods,  such  as 
Horus,  Osiris,  Ra,  and  Set,  yet  a  "  Power " 
(Nutar),  "without  any  individual  name  or 
mythological  characteristic,  is  constantly  re- 
ferred to  in  the  singular  number,  as  the  Power 
from  whom  all  other  powers  proceed." 

Was  then  this  "  Nutar"  the  God  of  primi- 
tive Egypt,  perhaps  only  a  deified  ancestor,  the 
first  king  of  Egypt,  or  the  first  man,  as  Mr. 
Spencer's  theory  would  have  it  ?  For  this 
there  is  not  a  vestige  of  evidence.  M.  Renouf  s 
answer  to  this  question  is  most  unambiguous. 
He  affirms  that  the  Power  thus  named  is  no 
ghost  of  the  first  king  of  Egypt,  or  of  the  first 
ancestor  of  the  race,  but  "  unquestionably  the 
true  and  only  God,  who  is  not  far  from  any 
one  of  us." 

Neither,  according  to  this  same  distinguished 
scholar,  can  this  ghost-theory  of  religion 

1  For  references  for  these  and  the  following  citations  from  Re- 
nouf, see  Lecture  VII. 


102       GENESIS    AX!)    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

account  even  for  the  subordinate  gods,  which, 
along  with  the  true  and  living  God,  the  Egyp- 
tians came  to  worship.  M.  Renouf  is  very  ex- 
plicit on  this  matter.  He  says  that  these 
subordinate  gods  of  ancient  Egypt  "  were  not 
the  ghosts  of  ancestors  or  other  dead  men,  or 
representatives  of  abstract  principles,  as  ancient 
and  modern  philosophers  have  supposed,  .  .  . 
but  the  powers  of  nature."  The  extreme  an- 
tiquity to  which  we  are  able  to  trace  back  the 
history  of  religion  in  Egypt,  through  the  wit- 
ness of  contemporaneous  documents,  makes  it 
in  a  special  manner  a  test  case  for  all  theories 
on  this  subject.  If  in  Egypt  we  find  no  trace 
of  ancestor-worship  as  the  antecedent  of  the 
worship  of  one  God,  then  we  are  not  likely 
to  find  it  elsewhere.  The  consentient  testimony 
of  all  reputable  Egyptologists  is  such  as  to 
make  it  clear  that  the  facts  as  regards  the 
early  religious  history  of  the  Egyptians  cannot 
be  comprehended  under  Mr.  Spencer's  theory. 

We  have  been  greatly  surprised  that  Mr. 
Spencer  should  also  argue  for  his  theory  from 
the  original  meaning  of  the  words  which  are 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.   103 

used  in  many  languages  to  denote  "  God." 
His  words  are :  "  Even  the  words  applied  in 
more  advanced  societies  to  different  orders  of 
supernatural  beings,  indicate  by  their  original 
community  of  meaning,  that  this  has  been 
the  course  of  genesis.  The  fact  cited  above, 
that  among  the  Tannese  the  word  for  <  a  god ' 
means  literally  '  a  dead  man,'  is  typical  of 
facts  everywhere  found." 

In  reply  to  this  we  have  to  ask  for  evidence 
that  such  facts  are  "everywhere  found."  It 
is  not  given,  as  it  should  have  been,  in  his 
argument.  In  the  meantime,  we  venture  to 
question  this  broad  assertion,  and  submit  the 
following  facts  to  the  contrary. 

Among  the  Chinese,  the  word  shin,  used  for 
"  God,"  means  originally,  according  to  Chinese 
scholars,  "breath,"  and  then,  "spirit."  Among 
the  ancient  Hindoos,  as  also  among  the 
moderns  in  South  India,  the  word  deva,  for 
"God,"  is  derived  from  the  Sanskrit  div,  "to 
shine,"  and  has  nothing  to  do  with  a  dead 
man.  Neither  have  other  words  used  to  de- 
note the  Divine  Being,  in  North  and  South 


104      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

India,  any  reference  to  the  spirits  of  the 
departed.  The  etymology  of  Brahma  is  uncer- 
tain, but  has  been  thought  by  high  authority 
to  denote  God  as  the  worshipped  one  (from 
vrih,"to  increase"?).  The  word  Isli  (Isliwar] 
means  "  lord."  Deus,  as  every  scholar  knows, 
is  connected  with  the  Sanskrit  divas,  from 
div,  as  above.  The  yet  older  name  dyaus, 
preserved  for  us  in  the  syllable  Ju,  of  Jupiter, 
etymologically  means  "  heaven,"  and  has  never 
been  used  in  any  language  with  reference  to 
the  dead.  Connected  with  this  Sanskrit  dyaus, 
also,  are  the  Greek  Zeus,  the  Old  German  Ziu, 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Tiw,  the  Gothic  Tins,  and 
the  Scandinavian  Tyr.  The  etymology  of  the 
Greek  #€09  is  yet  uncertain ;  but,  among  all 
the  derivations  which  have  been  suggested, 
there  is  not  one  which  embodies  any  allusion 
to  dead  ancestors.  The  term  Ahura-mazda, 
by  which  God  was  known  among  the  ancient 
Zoroastrians,  is  compounded  of  ahum  (for  the 
Sanskrit  asura,  "living  one,"  "the  eternal") 
and  mazda  (from  maz,  "great,"  and  dao, 
"knowing"),  and  is  thus,  literally,  "the  omnis- 


HERBERT  SPENCER'S  GHOST  THEORY.   105 

cient  Eternal."  No  suggestion  here,  evidently, 
of  some  dead  ancestor. 

Among  the  Hebrews  and  other  Semitic 
peoples  we  have  many  names  for  God,  but 
not  one,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  which  affords 
any  semblance  of  support  for  Mr.  Spencer's 
astonishing  statement.  Yahveh  (Jehovah),  like 
the  old  Egyptian  Nuk  pu  nuk,  probably  denotes 
the  Supreme  Being,  as  Mr.  Spencer  should 
know,  with  reference  to  his  self-existence.  The 
Hebrew  El  (Assyrian  Ilu),  etc.,  as  also  the 
ancient  Egyptian  Nutar,  by  etymology  denote 
God  simply  as  the  Mighty  One.  The  Hebrew 
Elohim,  Eloah  (Arabic  Allah),  from  a  root  mean- 
ing "  to  tremble,"  represents  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing as  the  object  of  awe  and  worship.  Such 
terms  as  Baal,  Adoni,  "Lord,"  "my  Lord,"  and 
Molech,  "monarch,"  etc.,  no  doubt  are  applicable 
enough  to  some  great  ancestor  or  earthly  mon- 
arch, but  there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence 
that  they  originally  had  this  reference. 

But  such  facts  as  these,  if  known  to  Mr. 
Spencer,  do  not  seem  to  have  troubled  him. 
He  even  represents  the  Old  Testament  as 


106      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

supporting  his  theory,  quoting  Isa.  viii.  19 : 
"And  when  they  shall  say  unto -you,  consult 
the  ghost-seers  and  the  wizards  that  chirp  and 
that  mutter ;  should  not  a  people  consult  their 
gods,  even  the  dead,  in  behalf  of  the  living?"1 
So  also  he  refers  to  the  case  of  the  Witch  of 
Endor  (i  Sam.  xxviii.  17),  as  seeing  "gods" 
coming  out  of  the  earth,  among  whom  appears 
the  dead  prophet  Samuel.2 

But  what  have  these  passages  to  do  with 
the  proof  of  his  position  ?  They  imply,  no 
doubt,  that  the  people  addressed  were  in  the 
habit  of  worshipping,  or,  rather,  consulting, 
the  dead;  but  that  does  not  prove  that  this 
worship  of  the  spirits  of  dead  men  preceded 
the  worship  of  God,  so  that  the  idea  of  God 
is  to  be  derived  from  the  conception  of  a 
ghost. 

But  the  case  of  the  Jews,  notwithstanding 
these  words  from  Isaiah,  gives  Mr.  Spencer  no 
little  trouble.  How  to  reconcile  the  facts  con- 

1  So  Mr.  Spencer  translates  !   but  see  the  revised  version,  as 
also  Delitzsch,  and  many  other  expositors  of  the  first  rank. 

2  "Principles  of  Sociology,"  vol.  i,  pp.  298,  299. 


HERBERT  SPENCER?S  GHOST  THEORY.   107 

cerning  their  history  and  worship  with  his 
theory,  is  the  problem,  and  he  does  not  seem 
to  have  found  it  an  easy  one.  He  deals  with 
it  in  the  following  manner. 

In  the  first  place,  he  admits  that  the  earliest 
Hebrew  "  legends  "  are  silent  on  the  subject  of 
ancestor  or  ghost-worship.  But,  he  rejoins, 
"the  silence  of  their  legends  is  but  a  negative 
fact,  which  may  be  as  misleading  as  negative 
facts  often  are."  Very  truly  said !  Silence  as 
to  such  worship  would  not  of  necessity  prove 
that  it  did  not  originally  exist.  But,  unfor- 
tunately for  Mr.  Spencer's  argument,  the  He- 
brew writings  are  not  silent  as  to  the  worship 
of  primitive  men,  but  have  spoken  most  dis- 
tinctly about  it.  They  emphatically  and 
unanimously  testify  that  the  Hebrews,  and, 
indeed,  the  human  race,  began,  not  with  ghost- 
worship,  but  with  the  worship  of  a  living  and 
personal  God.  But  this  testimony  is  passed 
over  by  Mr.  Spencer  in  silence.  Possibly, 
however,  he  may  have  had  this  in  mind  when 
he  next  remarks  that  the  sacred  books  of  a 
religion  "  may  give  very  untrue  ideas  concern- 


108       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

ing  the  actual  beliefs  of  its  professors/' 1  and 
suggests  that  this  may  be  the  case  with  the 
writings  of  the  old  Hebrews.  In  support  of  his 
theory  of  an  original  Hebrew  ancestor-worship, 
however,  he  ventures  upon  citing  Deut.  xxvi. 
14,  wherein  the  sacrificer  is  required  to  say  that 
he  has  not  given  of  his  first-fruits  "  for  the 
dead."  From  this  passage  he  concludes  that 
ancestor-worship  had  then  developed  "  as  far  as 
nomadic  habits  allowed,  before  it  was  repressed 
by  a  higher  worship."  But  granting  that  the 
words  imply  the  worship  of  the  spirits  of  the 
departed  at  the  time  when  the  book  was  writ- 
ten—  which  no  one  would  think  of  denying 
—  what  bearing  has  this  on  his  argument  ? 
For  the  conclusion  to  be  established  is  not  that 
ancestor-worship  is  ancient,  but  that  it  was 
primitive.  The  words  prove  the  former,  but 
have  no  bearing  on  the  latter. 

So  far,  then,  in  review  of  Mr.  Spencer's 
theory  of  the  origin  and  the  evolution  of 
religion.  We  can  readily  recognise  the  inge- 
nuity of  his  reasoning,  and  the  extensive 

1  "Principles  of  Sociology, "  p.  292. 


HERBERT  SPENCER*S  GHOST  THEORY.   109 

research  which  this  part  of  his  Sociology  ex- 
hibits ;  but  none  the  less  are  we  persuaded 
that,  as  an  hypothesis  to  account  for  the  phe- 
nomena of  religion,  his  theory,  no  less  than 
that  of  a  primitive  animism  or  fetishism,  must 
be  regarded  as  inadequate  and  unsatisfying. 


LECTURE   IV. 

PROFESSOR  MAX  MULLER'S  THEORY  OF  THE  ORIGIN 
OF  RELIGION. 

VERY  different  from  the  theories  hitherto 
reviewed,  is  that  which  in  various  successive 
publications  has  been  elaborated  by  Professor 
Max  Miiller.  Unlike  many  others  who  have 
written  on  the  subject,  he  is  professedly,  not  an 
unbeliever,  but  a  believer  in  the  Christian  relig- 
ion. Regarding  Christianity,  —  or,  to  speak 
more  accurately,  Christianity  as  he  understands 
it,  —  he  never  speaks  but  in  the  highest  terms. 
He  declares  it  to  be  his  conviction  that  "  there 
is  110  religion  in  the  whole  world,  which  in 
simplicity,  in  purity  of  purpose,  in  charity  and 
true  humanity,  comes  near  to  that  religion 
which  Christ  taught  to  his  disciples."1  This 
attitude  of  his  toward  the  religion  of  Christ 
as  understood  by  him,  no  doubt  inclines  many 

1  "  Natural  Religion,"  p.  570. 
110 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        Ill 

to  receive  his  theory  as  to  the  origin  and 
growth  of  religion  the  more  readily,  as  thus 
presumably  in  harmony  with  the  teachings  of 
the  Holy  Scriptures  and  the  fundamentals  of 
Christian  faith. 

In  judging  the  value  and  significance  of  his 
estimate  of  Christianity,  and  the  presumable 
relation  of  his  theory  to  the  Christian  religion, 
it  is,  however,  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  that 
his  words  in  praise  of  the  religion  of  Christ 
appear  only  to  have  reference  to  the  ethical 
teachings  of  our  Lord.  For,  in  his  "  Physical 
Religion," l  he  explicitly  refuses  credence  to 
everything  which,  in  those  same  Gospels  which 
are  the  only  authority  as  to  Christ's  moral 
teachings,  He  is  said  to  have  claimed  and  taught 
regarding  His  own  superhuman  personality. 
The  accounts  which  are  given  by  Matthew  and 
Luke  of  the  miraculous  conception  and  birth 
of  our  Lord,  he  expressly  classifies  with  the 
absurd  legends  concerning  the  childhood  of 
Jesus  which  appear  in  the  Apocryphal  Gospels  ; 
from  which,  he  tells  us,  —  nothing  troubled  by 

1  Published  in  London,  1891. 


112       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

the  absence  of  all  evidence  for  the  truth  of 
the  assertion,  —  these  stories  have  "  found 
their  way,  we  know  not  through  what  channels, 
into  two  of  our  Synoptical  Gospels !  "  l  These 
accounts  of  the  supernatural  origin  of  our 
Lord  are,  therefore,  in  his  opinion,  "  fabulous 
stories,"  "imaginary  representations"2  of  no 
more  historical  value  than  the  tales  of  the 
wonderful  birth  of  the  Buddha  in  the  later 
Buddhistic  books,  which  serve  him  as  an  illus- 
tration. 

Denying  thus  the  truth  of  that  claim  for 
making  which,  as  all  extant  accounts  agree, 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  was  crucified,  he  thus  finds 
himself  quite  at  liberty  to  reject  everything  else 
in  His  teaching,  as  recorded  in  the  Gospels, 
which,  if  accepted  as  true,  would  be  irreconcil- 
able with  his  own  theory  as  to  the  origin  and 
development  of  religion.  He  thus  consistently 
denies  the  claim  of  Christianity,  as  expounded 
by  its  Founder,  to  be  a  supernatural  revelation 
and  the  true  religion,  in  any  exclusive  sense. 
The  distinction  between  natural  and  revealed 

i  »  Physical  Religion,"  p.  356.  2  Ib.  pp.  356,  357. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        113 

religion  he  refuses  to  admit.  While  differing 
radically  with  Mr.  Spencer  and  Professor  Tiele 
as  to  the  manner  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  religion,  he  is  quite  at  one  with  them 
in  regarding  it  as  exclusively  natural,  and  in 
denying  that  man  began,  or  could  have  begun, 
his  existence  on  earth,  with  the  knowledge  of 
God  as  one  and  personal.  "  The  idea  of  0eos, 
'God,"  he  tells  us,  "was  evolved  from  the 
idea  of  tfeoi,  '  gods '  "  ; l  it  is  "  the  result  of  an 
unbroken  historical  evolution,  .  .  .  but  not  of  a 
sudden  revelation,"2  and  while  the  road  from 
nature  certainly  leads  godward,  it  is  only 
through  the  gate  of  polytheism  that  men  have 
attained  to  the  final  belief  in  one  supreme  and 
only  God.3 

In  arguing  this  opinion,  he  appeals  continu- 
ally to  history  as  preserved  in  language,  but 
sets  aside  without  hesitation  the  teachings  of 
those  Jewish  Scriptures  which  .Christ  recognised 
as  of  inerrant  authority,  as  unworthy  of  cre- 
dence in  what  they  teach  as  to  the  origin  and 
development  of  religion.  If  Christ  and  his 

1  "Physical  Religion,"  p.  117.  2  Ib.  p.  140.  3  Ib.  p.  142. 

I 


114      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

apostles  attributed  to  them  any  such  authority 
regarding  the  early  history  of  our  race,  this 
only  proves  that  they  were  mistaken. 

In  view  of  the  assured  confidence  with  which 
he  sets  aside  the  testimony  of  the  early  Old 
Testament  records,  as  merely  an  agglomera- 
tion of  ancient  oral  traditions  and  legends, 
without  much  historical  value,  it  is  truly  some- 
what surprising  to  find  him,  in  the  Gifford 
Lectures  for  1890,  more  than  two  years  after 
the  famous  tablets  discovered  at  Tel  el  Amarna 
had  been  deciphered  by  Professor  Sayce,  his 
learned  colleague  in  the  University  of  Oxford, 
yet  saying  that  "  to  suppose  that  portions  of 
the  Old  Testament  existed  in  the  form  of  books 
in  the  time  of  Moses,  would  run  counter  to 
all  history  "  ; l  that  David's  letter  to  Joab  about 
Uriah  (2  Sam.  xi.  15)  "  seems  the  first  authen- 
tic specimen  of  epistolary  writing "; 2  and  that 
no  books  were  written  till  "  nearly  a  thousand 
years  after  Moses." 3  For,  on  the  high  authority 
of  Professor  Sayce,  we  are  able  to  affirm  as  a 
matter  of  certain  knowledge,  that  150  years 

i  "  Physical  Religion,"  p.  219.  2  Ib.  p.  388.  «  Ib.  p.  216. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        115 

before  the  time  of  Moses,  a  constant  corre- 
spondence was  going  on  between  Egypt,  Pales- 
tine, and  Babylon,  of  which  the  original 
autographs  are  in  our  possession.  Moreover, 
in  the  light  of  these  facts,  Professor  Sayce 
suggests  that  the  existence  even  of  libraries  in 
the  land  of  Canaan  at  that  very  early  date,  is 
quite  possibly  intimated  by  the  familiar  name  of 
the  Canaanitish  city  of  Kirjath  Sepher,  literally, 
"City  of  the  Book."1 

When  we  thus  find  facts  which  bear  so 
decisively  on  the  trustworthiness  of  the  Old 
Testament  records  passed  by  in  silence,  and 
statements  made,  or  suppositions  advanced, 
which  they  conclusively  disprove,  it  is  evident 
that  no  one  should  attribute  too  great  impor- 

1  See  "  Transactions  of  the  Victoria  Institute,1'  vol.  xxiv,  pp. 
12-27,  "Annual  Address  by  the  Rev.  Professor  Sayce."  Over 
against  these  surprising  assertions  of  Professor  Max  Miiller  we 
may  set  the  following  words  of  Professor  Sayce  :  "  Little  historical 
credence  can  be  placed,  it  has  been  urged,  in  the  earlier  records 
of  the  Hebrew  people,  because  they  could  not  have  been  com- 
mitted to  writing,  until  a  period  when  the  history  of  the  past  had 
become  traditional  and  mythical.  But  this  assumption  can  be 
no  longer  maintained.  Long  before  the  Exodus,  Canaan  had  its 
libraries  and  its  scribes,  its  schools  and  literary  men." 


116      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

tance  to  the  professor's  estimate  of  the  historic 
value  of  those  ancient  Scriptures  which  rep- 
resent a  belief  as  to  the  beginning  of  religion 
so  completely  contradictory  of  that  which  he 
has  elaborated.  And  it  is  only  right  that,  in 
estimating  the  worth  of  his  reasonings,  and  the 
value  of  his  laudations  of  the  Christian  religion, 
one  should  keep  in  mind  the  lecturer's  mental 
attitude  toward  all  supernaturalism  in  religion, 
as  indicated  by  such  facts  as  the  above. 

Notwithstanding,  then,  the  many  words  of 
praise  for  that  which  he  regards  as  Christi- 
anity, Professor  Max  Miiller,  no  less  than  the 
writers  hitherto  reviewed,  rejects  the  teaching 
of  the  Christian  Scriptures  as  to  the  origin 
and  development  of  religion,  for  a  theory  of 
his  own.  He  tells  us  that,  instead  of  man  hav- 
ing known,  from  the  first,  one  personal  God  as 
his  Father  in  heaven,  "  religious  thought  began 
with  the  naming  of  a  large  number  of  clearly 
marked  and  differentiated  objects,  such  as  the 
Sky,  the  Dawn,  the  Thunder,  the  Lightning, 
the  Storm,  Mountains,  and  Trees ;  and  that  the 
concept  of  superhuman  beings  arose  afterward, 


PROFESSOR   MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        117 

as  a  concept  common  to  all,  when  divested  of 
their  characteristic  differences."  Thus,  accord- 
ing to  this  theory,  no  less  than  those  pre- 
viously criticised,  the  representations  of  the 
Book  of  Genesis  concerning  the  origin  of  relig- 
ion, —  endorsed,  it  must  never  be  forgotten,  by 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  —  are  the  exact  reverse 
of  the  truth.  Man  did  not  begin  with  a  knowl- 
edge, even  very  rudimentary  and  imperfect, 
of  his  Father  in  heaven,  but  with  no  knowledge 
of  Him  whatever.  And  the  history  of  religion 
has  not  been  a  decline  from  primeval  simplicity 
and  purity,  but  a  steady  advance,  on  the  whole, 
from  that  which  was  lower  to  that  which  was 
higher ;  from  naming  to  nature-worship ;  from 
that,  through  polytheism  and  henotheism,  to 
monotheism,  the  recognition  of  the  one  God,  the 
Creator  and  Ruler  of  heaven  and  earth. 

It  wa's  the  object  of  the  Hibbert  Lectures 
in  1878,  on  "  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Relig- 
ion," to  show,' in  illustration  of  this  theory, 
how  it  was  that,  in  India,  at  least,  man  gradu- 
ally rose,  from  the  mere  perceptions  of  the 

1  "Natural  Religion,"  p.  130. 


118      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

senses,  through  what  is  called  "  heno theism," 
and  then  polytheism,  to  the  recognition  of  the 
unity  of  God.  In  those  Lectures,  Professor  Max 
Miiller  defined  religion  as  a  "  mental  faculty 
or  disposition  which  enables  man  to  apprehend 
the  Infinite." l  This  definition,  as  remarked 
in  Lecture  I,  he  has  since  modified,  and,  in  the 
Gifford  Lectures  for  1890,  religion  is  defined 
as  "the  perception  of  the  infinite  under  such 
manifestations  as  are  able  to  influence  the  moral 
character  of  man."2  The  "infinite"  is  defined 
as  comprehending  "all  that  transcends  our 
senses  and  our  reason."  And  yet  he  con- 
stantly insists  that  all  knowledge,  and  there- 
fore the  knowledge  of  the  infinite,  comes 
through  the  senses;  and  thus  he  makes  the 
validity  of  his  whole  argument  to  rest  upon 
the  truth  of  sensationalism. 

After  all  that  has  been  said,  however,  the 
question  will  still  force  itself  upon  us :  How  is 
it  possible  that  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  of  infi- 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  22,  23. 

2  "Natural  Religion,"  p.  188. 

8  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  27  ;  cf.  pp.  34,  35. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        119 

nite  space,  for  example,  could  be  gained  through 
sense  perception  ?  Professor  Max  Miiller's  an- 
swer to  this  question  we  have  in  such  words  as 
the  following :  "  With  every  finite  perception 
there  is  a  concomitant  sentiment,  or,  if  that 
word  should  seem  too  strong,  a  concomitant  sen- 
timent or  presentiment,  of  the  infinite."  These 
words  he  explains  as  meaning  that  "from  the 
very  first  act  of  touch,  or  hearing,  or  sight, 
we  are  brought  in  contact,  not  only  with  a 
visible,  but  also,  at  the  same  time,  with  an 
invisible  universe." *  Or,  again  :  "  The  reason 
why  we  cannot  conceive  an  absolute  limit  is 
because  we  never  perceive  an  absolute  limit/'2 
Hence  arises  the  notion,  e.g.,  of  infinite  space, 
or  of  infinite  time.  And,  in  the  perception  of 
the  infinite  thus  gained  through  the  senses,  he 
assures  us  that  "  we  have  the  root  of  the  whole 
historical  development  of  human  faith."  In 
detail,  the  theory  is  then  worked  out  in  the 
following  manner. 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  46. 

2  "Natural  Religion,"  pp.  122,  123. 

3  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  47. 


120      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Having  received  an  impression  of  the  infinite 
in  their  very  first  sense-perceptions,  men  began 
then  to  look  for  the  infinite  in  various  objects, 
such  as  mountains,  rivers,  trees,  the  overarch- 
ing heaven,  etc.,  and,  slowly  rising  higher  and 
higher,  generalising  the  various  conceptions 
gained,  they  at  last  began  to  call  that  unseen 
Infinite,  Maker,  Preserver,  GOD ! 

The  history  of  early  religious  thought  as 
given  in  the  Veda,  and  the  Vedic  language,  is 
then  used  for  the  confirmation  of  this  theory. 
The  various  objects  of  sense-perception  are 
classified,  for  this  purpose,  as  "tangible," 
"semi-tangible,"  and  "intangible."1  Under  the 
first  head  are  placed  "  objects  complete  in 
themselves,  which  we  can  touch  and  handle 
all  around,  which  we  can  smell,  and  taste,  and 
hear,  as,  e.g.,  stones,  bones,  shells,  flowers, 
berries,  and  logs  of  wood."  To  the  second 
class,  the  "semi-tangible,"  belong  such  objects 
as  can  be  apprehended  by  the  senses,  but  not 
completely ;  such  as  trees,  mountains,  rivers. 
Other  objects  of  sense,  again,  cannot  be  touched, 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  179,  et  seq. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        121 

although  they  can  be  seen.  Such  are  the  sky, 
the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars.  These  are 
called  the  "intangible";  "in  all  these  percepts 
the  infinite  preponderates  over  the  finite,  and 
the  mind  of  man  is  driven  ...  to  admit  some- 
thing beyond  the  finite."  In  such  objects  as 
these,  we  are  told,  are  found  "the  germs  of 
most  of  the  great  gods  of  the  ancient  world"; 
while  the  second  class,  the  semi-tangible,  has 
furnished  the  demi-gods  of  men,  and  the  first 
and  lowest  connects  itself  with  fetish- worship.'2 

Besides  this  revelation  of  the  infinite  in 
nature,  the  infinite  is  disclosed  also  "in  man, 
looked  upon  as  an  object,  and  lastly,  in  man, 
looked  upon  as  a  subject."3  And  this  three- 
fold source  of  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  is  made 
the  basis  of  a  distinction  between  "physical," 
"anthropological,"  and  "psychological"  relig- 
ion.4 

This  analysis  is  then  illustrated  by  the  his- 
tory of  the  development  of  religion  in  India. 

1  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  185,  186;  "Natural 
Religion,"  p.  15:1.  2  Ib.  p.  154. 

3  Ib.  p.  155.  4  Ib.  p.  164. 


122      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Professor  Max  Miiller  regards  it  as  certain 
that  in  the  primitive  Vedic  age,  the  Indian 
Aryans  did  not  have  the  idea  of  God  as  we 
have  it.  "  The  concept  and  name  of  deity  was 
passing  through  the  first  stages  of  its  evolu- 
tion." 1  The  evolution  proceeded  after  the  fol- 
lowing manner. 

"  The  ancient  Aryans  first  faced  the  invisi- 
ble, the  unknown,  or  the  infinite,  in  trees, 
mountains,  and  rivers ;  in  the  dawn  and  the 
sun ;  in  the  fire,  the  storm-wind,  and  the 
thunder ;  they  ascribed  to  all  of  them  a  self, 
a  substance,  a  divine  support,  or  whatever  else 
we  like  to  call  it :  —  in  so  doing  they  always 
felt  the  presence  of  something  which  they  could 
not  see,  behind  what  they  could  see ;  of  some- 
thing supernatural  behind  the  natural,  of  some- 
thing super-finite,  or  infinite.  The  names  which 
they  gave,  the  nomina,  may  have  been  wrong; 
but  the  search  after  the  numina  was  legitimate. 
That  search  led  the  ancient  Aryans  as  far  as 
it  has  led  most  among  ourselves,  viz.,  to  the 
recognition  of  a  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 

1  "  Natural  Religion,"  p.  203. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        123 

Nay,  ...  it  led  them  farther  still :  .  .  .  they 
learnt,  and  we  all  of  us  have  to  learn  it,  that 
we  must  take  out  of  that  word  ' father'  one 
predicate  after  another,  all  in  fact  that  is  con- 
ceivable in  it,  if  we  wish  to  apply  it  still  to 
God."  l 

And  still  we  are  not  to  understand  the  pro- 
fessor as  teaching  that  the  earliest  faith  of  the 
Indian  Aryans  was  polytheism.  Yet  neither 
was  it  monotheism,  but  what  he  calls  "  henothe- 
ism."  The  exposition  of  this  term  may  best 
be  given  again  in  his  own  words.  Man  in 
India  began  with  "  a  belief  and  worship  of 
those  single  objects,  whether  semi-tangible  or 
intangible,  in  which  man  first  suspected  the 
presence  of  the  invisible  and  the  infinite,  each 
of  which  .  .  .  was  raised  into  something  more 
than  finite,  more  than  natural,  more  than  con- 
ceivable ;  and  thus  grew  to  be  an  A  sura,  or  a 
living  thing;  a  Deva  or  a  bright  being;  an 
Amartya,  that  is,  not  a  mortal,  and  at  last  an 
immortal  and  eternal  being,  —  in  fact,  a  God, 
endowed  with  the  highest  qualities  which  the 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  228,  220. 


124      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

human  intellect  could  conceive  at  the  various 
stages  of  its  own  growth." x  This  was  heno- 
theism,  a  "  belief  in  single  supreme  beings."  2 

The  rationale  of  this  process,  according  to 
Professor  Max  Mu'ller,  is  revealed  by  the  scien- 
tific examination  of  the  origin  of  language. 
"  The  most  of  Aryan  words  expressed  originally 
our  own  acts."  3  Most  primitive  acts  "  were  ac- 
companied by  almost  involuntary  utterances."  4 
Man,  first  using  such  radical  sounds,  predicated 
acts  of  himself,5  and  then,  through  the  necessity 
of  the  case,  named  all  other  objects,  animate 
and  inanimate,  by  applying  to  them  these  roots 
expressive  of  action,  which  he  had  used  first 
of  himself.  "  All  that  had  to  be  expressed  had 
to  be  changed  into  actors."  "  The  fire  was 
called  Agni,  '  the  moving ' ;  the  Dawn,  Ushas, 
'the  shining,'"  etc.,  etc.  Thus  the  personifica- 
tion of  the  powers  and  phenomena  of  nature 
was  a  necessity  arising  out  of  the  nature  of 
language ;  and  so  language  generated  the  myth, 
and  the  myth,  religion.  If  the  wind  was  named 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  266.  '2  Ib.  p.  384. 

3  "  Natural  Religion,"  p.  386.     *  Ib.  p.  387.     5  Ib.  p.  388. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        125 

Mhrut,  u  the  striker/'  this  supposed  an  unseen 
power  as  the  agent.  And  so  with  all  those 
words  which  designated  the  ancient  Yedic  gods. 

This  theory  of  the  origin  and  the  order  of 
the  development  of  religion,  he  attempts  to 
prove  by  the  case  of  the  sun ;  showing  us  how 
"we  can  follow  in  the  Vedic  hymns,  step  by 
step,  the  development  which  changes  the  sun 
from  a  mere  luminary  into  a  creator,  preserver, 
ruler,  and  rewarder  of  the  world  —  in  fact,  into 
a  divine  or  supreme  being."  And  yet,  as  is 
clearly  shown,  all  the  divine  attributes  which 
are  ascribed  to  the  sun,  are  in  like  manner 
ascribed  to  the  sky,  then  to  fire,  and  to  other 
objects  of  worship.1  And  yet  this  was  not, 
strictly  speaking,  polytheism  ;  for  each  of  these, 
for  the  time  being,  was  regarded  and  addressed 
as  if  it  were  the  sole  divinity.  And  this  is 
what  he  has  named  "  henotheism." 

We  may  well  sum  up  these  statements  of 
Professor  Max  Miiller's  by  giving  his  own  resume 
of  his  argument  in  the  Hibbert  Lectures. 

"  Our    senses,   while    they    supply   us    with 

1  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  270,  271. 


126      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

a  knowledge  of  finite  things,  are  constantly 
brought  in  contact  with  what  is  not  finite,  or, 
at  least,  not  finite  yet.  .  .  .  Their  chief  work 
is  in  fact  to  elaborate  the  finite  out  of  the 
infinite.  .  .  .  From  this  permanent  contact  of 
the  senses  with  the  infinite  sprang  the  impulse 
to  religion,  the  first  suspicion  of  something  be- 
yond what  the  senses  could  apprehend,  beyond 
what  reason  and  language  could  comprehend. 
Here  was  the  deepest  foundation  of  all  religion, 
and  the  explanation  of  that  which  before  every- 
thing, before  fetishism,  and  figurism,  and  an- 
imism and  anthropomorphism,  needs  explana- 
tion; why  man  should  not  have  been  satisfied 
with  a  knowledge  of  sensuous  objects ;  why  the 
ideas  should  have  ever  entered  his  mind,  that 
there  is  or  can  be  anything  in  the  world  be- 
sides what  he  can  touch  or  hear,  or  see,  call  it 
powers,  or  spirits,  or  gods.  .  .  .  After  the  idea 
had  once  laid  hold  of  man,  that  there  was 
something  beyond  the  finite,  the  Hindoo  looked 
for  it  everywhere  in  nature,  trying  to  grasp  and 
to  name  it ;  at  first  among  semi-tangible,  and 
then  among  intangible,  and  at  last  among  in- 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        127 

visible  objects.  ...  A  new  world  thus  grew 
up,  peopled  by  semi-tangible,  intangible,  and  in- 
visible objects,  all  manifesting  certain  activities, 
such  as  could  be  compared  with  the  activities  of 
human  beings,  and  named  with  names  that 
belonged  to  those  human  activities.  Of  these 
various  names,  some  became  general  epithets, 
and  the  word  <  deva,'  e.g.,  among  them.  .  .  . 
Other  ideas  which  are  truly  religious,  .  .  .  were, 
like  all  abstract  ideas,  .  .  .  derived  from  sen- 
suous impressions,  even  the  ideas  of  law,  vir- 
tue, infinitude,  and  immortality.  .  .  .  Lastly, 
by  a  perfectly  natural  and  intelligible  process, 
a  belief  in  single  supreme  beings,  or  devas,  — 
Henotheism  —  tended  to  become  a  belief  in  one 
God,  presiding  over  the  others,  no  longer 
supreme  gods,  Polytheism ;  or  a  belief  in  one 
God,  excluding  the  very  possibility  of  other 
gods  —  Monotheism.  Still  further,  ...  all  the 
old  devas  or  gods  were  found  out  to  be  but 
names ;  but  that  discovery,  though  in  some 
cases  it  led  to  atheism  and  some  kind  of 
Buddhism,  led  in  others  to  a  new  start  and 
the  belief  in  one  Being,  which  is  the  Self  of 


128       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

everything,  which  is  not  only  beyond  and  be- 
neath all  finite  things,  as  apprehended  by  the 
senses,  but  also  beneath  and  beyond  our  own 
finite  Ego,  the  Self  of  all  selves."  l  This  last 
form  of  belief  Professor  Max  Miiller  does  not 
name,  but  the  intelligent  will  recognise  it  as 
pantheism. 

Fully  recognising  the  learning  and  ability 
with  which  this  theory  of  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  religion  is  elaborated  by  its  accom- 
plished author,  we  must  yet  regard  it  as  utterly 
inadequate  and  unsatisfactory. 

In  the  first  place,  the  whole  discussion  is 
vitiated  by  the  sense  which  is  given  to  the 
word  "infinite,"  as  used  in  his  definition  of 
religion.  The  term  is  defined  as  comprehend- 
ing uall  that  transcends  our  senses  and  reason," 
and  is  repeatedly  interchanged  with  the  words 
"  invisible  "  and  "  indefinite." 

But  as  this  definition  has  already  been  criti- 
cised at  length,2  we  may  pass  on  to  indicate 
another  and  still  more  serious  objection  to  the 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  381-384. 

2  Vid.  sup.  pp.  16-21. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        129 

theory  under  consideration.  It  is  fundamen- 
tally based  on  a  false  theory  of  knowledge.  Pro- 
fessor Max  Miiller  constantly  insists  that  all 
knowledge  whatsoever,  whether  religious  or  any 
other,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  derived  from  the 
sense-perceptions,  and  comes  through  the  senses 
only.  Of  any  intuitive  perception,  intellectual 
or  moral,  whether  of  cause,  or  of  the  infinite, 
or  of  the  distinction  of  right  and  wrong,  he 
will  hear  nothing.  Still  less  will  he  allow  the 
possibility  of  any  primeval  revelation,  even 
though  it  were  given  through  the  senses. 
Everything  which  any  religion  may  contain, 
came  in  the  first  instance  through  the  senses, 
and  in  a  purely  natural  way.  This  is  affirmed 
in  his  writings  again  and  again.  Thus  we 
are  told  in  the  Hibbert  Lectures :  — 

"All  knowledge,  in  order  to  be  knowledge, 
must  pass  through  two  gates  and  two  gates 
only,  the  gate  of  the  senses,  and  the  gate  of 
reason.  Religious  knowledge  also,  whether  true 
or  false,  must  have  passed  through  these  two 
gates.  At  these  two  gates,  therefore,  we  take 
our  stand.  Whatever  claims  to  have  entered 


130      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    KEL1G1ON. 

in  at  any  other  gate,  whether  that  gate  be 
called  primeval  revelation,  or  religious  instinct, 
must  be  rejected  as  contraband  of  thought. 
And  whatever  claims  to  have  entered  by  the 
gate  of  reason,  without  having  first  passed 
through  the  gate  of  the  senses,  must  equally 
be  rejected  as  without  sufficient  warrant,  or 
ordered  at  least  to  go  back  to  the  first  gate, 
in  order  there  to  produce  its  credentials." 
u  We  know  not  what  the  infinite  is,  but  we 
know  that  it  is,  and  we  know  it  because  we 
actually  feel  it,  and  are  brought  in  contact 
with  it."  2 

It  is  impossible,  in  the  limits  assigned  to  these 
lectures,  to  discuss  the  whole  question  of  sensa- 
tionalism in  philosophy,  but  we  may  call  atten- 
tion to  certain  considerations  which  especially 
bear  on  the  relation  of  sensationalism  to  this 
argument  on  the  origin  and  growth  of  religion. 

If  the  word  "  infinite  "  be  taken  in  the  sense 
in  which  men  commonly  use  it,  as  denoting 
that  which  is  absolutely  illimitable,  then  it  is 
certain  that  this  idea  can  never  have  come  to 

i  Op.  cit.  p.  226.  2  Ib.  p.  30. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        13 1 

us  through  the  senses.  There  is  more  in  the 
concept  than  sense-perception  can  possibly  fur- 
nish. How  could  the  senses  assure  us  of  the 
infinity  of  space  or  duration,  of  which  we  nei- 
ther have  nor  can  have  any  experience  ? 

But  this  is  not  all.  For  the  affirmation  of  the 
mind  is  not  merely  that  there  is  an  infinite, 
but  that  there  must  be  an  infinite.  Professor 
Max  Miiller  indeed  thinks  that  this  too  can  be 
explained  through  sense-perception.  He  tells 
us :  "  The  reason  why  we  cannot  conceive  an 
absolute  limit  is  because  we  never  perceive  an 
absolute  limit." l  But  this  is  to  condition  the 
idea  of  infinity  by  man's  power  of  perception ; 
whereas  the  concept,  as  it  lies  in  the  mind,  is 
always  that  of  an  absolutely  unconditioned 
truth.  Moreover,  the  affirmation  of  the  infin- 
ite, e.g.,  in  space,  involves  a  declaration  regard- 
ing the  future,  no  less  than  regarding  the 
present.  But  how  can  sense-perception  give 
any  man  a  certitude  as  to  what  must  be  in  all 
the  future  ?  It  is  true  that  sense-experience 
gives  us  a  beyond,  an  immense  beyond,  or  an 

1  "  Natural  Religion,"  pp.  122,  123. 


132      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

indefinite  beyond,  of  space,  but  certainly  not 
an  infinite  beyond,  which,  moreover,  must  exist 
forever. 

The  utter  inadequacy  of  the  theory  to  account 
for  the  phenomena  of  religion  is  all  the  more 
apparent,  when  we  direct  our  attention  from 
the  intellectual  "  must "  to  the  "  must "  of 
moral  law.  If  even  the  idea  of  intellectual 
necessity  cannot  have  come  into  the  mind 
through  the  senses,  still  less,  if  possible,  can 
that  moral  obligation  which  is  revealed  as  an 
eternal  necessity  in  all  the  great  religions. 
Professor  Max  Miiller,  indeed,  apparently  thinks 
this  to  be  sufficiently  explained  by  a  reference 
to  our  observation  by  the  senses,  of  the  order 
of  the  physical  universe.1  But  the  explanation 
is  inadequate  to  account  for  the  facts.  Even  if 
we  should  grant  —  what  would  be  hard  to  prove 
—  that  it  was  the  perception  of  the  physical 
order  of  nature  which  first  awakened  the  idea 
of  a  moral  order,  we  should  still  be  as  far  as 
ever  from  accounting  for  the  most  essential 
fact  of  all,  that  man  apprehends  the  moral 

i  it  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,1'  p.  251. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        133 

order  as  necessary,  and  conformity  to  it  as  of 
eternal  obligation.  For  that  no  one  ever  thinks 
of  the  order  of  the  kosmos  as  necessary,  the 
common  belief  in  miracles  sufficiently  attests. 
But  how  the  idea  of  that  which  is  necessary, 
can  be  evolved  from  the  perception  of  that 
which  is  not  necessary,  the  professor  omits  to 
show  us. 

But  even  if  we  were  to  assume  the  correctness 
of  the  definition  of  the  infinite  which  Professor 
Max  Miiller  gives  us,  as  "  that  which  transcends 
the  senses,"  it  is  still  not  easy  to  see  how  it 
can  be  true  that  "  our  senses  give  us  the  first 
impressions  of  infinite  things."  To  most,  these 
two  propositions  will  appear  to  be  mutually 
exclusive.  If  either  is  true,  then  how  can  the 
other  be  true  ? 

The  only  apparent  escape  from  this  dilemma 
is  by  the  supposition  that  when  it  is  said  that 
our  first  impressions  of  the  infinite  are  derived 
from  the  senses,  it  is  only  meant  that  certain 
sense-perceptions  are  the  occasion  of  bringing 
the  idea  of  the  infinite  into  consciousness.  But 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  38. 


134       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

if  this  is  what  is  intended,  then  it  is  implied 
that  the  idea  of  the  infinite  is  logically  ante- 
cedent to  the  sense-perceptions  which  call  it 
out  into  consciousness;  and  sensationalism  is 
not  the  whole  of  philosophy,  much  less  the 
foundation  of  religion. 

No  less  irreconcilable  with  sensationalism  is 
the  representation  which  we  find  in  "  Physical 
Religion,"  where  we  are  told  that  the  worship 
of  natural  objects  "  owes  its  origin  to  the  cate- 
gory of  causality."1  But  if  we  grant  this, 
sensationalism  fails  to  explain  it.  For  the 
causal  judgment  is  not  that  every  phenomenon 
has  had,  or  has,  or  even  will  have,  but  that 
it  must  have,  an  adequate  cause.  But  the  ques- 
tion often  asked,  never  has  been,  and  never 
can  be,  answered :  How  can  this  conception 
of  the  necessity  of  causation,  be  derived  from 
our  sense-perceptions  ? 

Even  such  considerations  as  these  should  be 
sufficient  to  show  the  inadequacy  of  the  theory 
before  us  to  explain  the  origin  of  religion ;  for, 
on  the  truth  of  sensationalism,  the  theory  is 

1  Op.  cit.  p.  8. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        135 

based.  Of  any  apprehension  of  God  by  the 
conscience,  prior  to  and  apart  from  the  visible 
perception  of  His  presence  and  power  in  nature, 
Professor  Max  Muller  will  hear  nothing.  He 
tells  us,  that  he  does  not  blame  any  one  who 
may  "  decline  to  discuss  the  problem  of  the  ori- 
gin of  religion  with  those  who  assume  ...  a 
religious  faculty  which  distinguishes  man  from 
the  animal."2  Everything  in  religion  is  traced 
back  to  man's  sense-perceptions ;  everything, 
from  the  most  degraded  type  of  fetish-worship 
to  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer ! 

But  still  greater  is  the  difficulty  of  evolving 
from  these  perceptions  of  the  infinite,  or  the 
indefinite,  or  the  beyond,  not  merely  the  idea  of 
causation,  but  also  that  of  a  personal  God,  as 
First  Cause,  and  moral  Ruler  of  the  Universe. 
Grant  that  in  the  perception  of  an  "  intangible 
object,"  as,  e.g.,  a  storm  or  the  sky,  men  do 
get  the  impression  of  a  power  or  a  vastness 
indefinitely  beyond  what  we  can  measure  and 
comprehend  ;  what  is  the  reason  that  men  in 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  128. 


136       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

all  ages  have  such  a  tendency  to  predicate  the 
power  or  the  immensity,  —  not  of  the  storm, 
or  the  sky,  but  of  an  unseen  God,  distinct  from 
storm  and  sky,  who  makes  the  clouds  his 
chariot,  and  rides  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  ? 
Here  is  a  break  in  the  continuity  of  the  sup- 
posed development.  Even  beasts  appear  some- 
times to  have  vague  impressions  of  an  unknown 
or  indefinite  beyond  that  which  they  see  or 
hear,  even  as  the  professor  supposes  of  his 
ideal  primitive  man.  What  else  can  it  be  than 
this,  which  makes  a  horse,  for  example,  start 
and  tremble  at  an  unfamiliar  sight  or  sound  ? 
But  if  in  such  a  sense-perception  is  contained 
in  an  elementary  way  the  idea  of  a  personal 
God,  and,  as  Professor  Max  Miiller  tells  us, 
man  has  no  religious  faculty  different  from 
any  possessed  by  a  brute,  why,  then,  should  not 
the  horse  have  ever  attained  through  sense- 
perception  some  dim  idea  of  an  invisible  God? 
How  can  we  avoid  the  inference  that  into  the 
concept  derived  from  the  senses  man  puts 
something  else,  which  the  senses  could  not  have 
furnished  ? 


PROFESSOR   MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        137 

According  to  Professor  Max  Miiller,  polythe- 
ism was  preceded  by  a  form  of  religion  which 
he  calls  henotheism ;  in  which,  although  in 
name  many  different  gods  were  worshipped,  yet 
each  was  regarded  by  the  worshipper,  for  the 
time  being,  as  the  one  only  God.  The  phenome- 
non is  explained  by  a  reference  to  the  neces- 
sities of  thought  as  expressed  in  language. 
Because,  e.g.,  the  Storm-wind  presented  itself 
to  the  senses  as  that  which  beats  and  pounds, 
therefore  it  was  called  Marut,  "  the  beater," 
"  the  striker " ;  hence  it  was  necessarily  con- 
ceived of  as  a  personal  being,  and  so  came  to  be 
regarded  as  a  god,  —  nay,  under  the  overwhelm- 
ing impression  of  its  power,  as,  for  the  time 
being,  the  only  God.  But  this  does  not  explain 
why  these  powers  of  nature  should  have  been 
regarded  as  personal;  still  less,  why  each  or 
any  one  of  them  should  have  been  regarded, 
even  for  the  time,  as  the  one  only  mighty  God, 
and  the  moral  Euler  of  the  Universe.  The 
fact  that  they  were  so  regarded  and  addressed, 
implies  that  the  worshipper  already  had  the 
conception  of  power  as  connected  with  person- 


138       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

ality,  and  the  idea  of  responsibility,  and,  in 
particular,  of  a  Deity  behind  phenomena,  from 
some  other  source.  The  truth  is,  that  this  pe- 
culiar form  of  religion  which  is  called  henothe- 
ism  is  far  more  naturally  and  easily  explained 
as  the  first  step  in  the  declension  from  a  primi- 
tive faith  in  one  invisible  God,  the  Author  and 
Ruler  of  Nature,  toward  the  fully  developed 
polytheism  which  immediately  followed.  Per- 
ceiving God  to  be  manifested  in  various  forms 
in  material  nature,  men,  in  the  first  instance, 
addressed  the  worship  which  was  His  sole  due, 
to  the  powers  of  nature,  not  as  separate  from 
Him,  but  as  manifestations  of  the  God  who 
was  One.  But  from  this,  it  was  only  a  step 
further  in  thought  to  separate  these  wholly 
from  God,  and  conceive  of  the  Fire,  the  Dawn, 
the  Sun,  the  Wind,  each  as  separate  objects  of 
worship. 

Closely  related  to  this  is  another  difficulty, 
namely,  concerning  the  evolution,  on  this  theory, 
of  the  ideas  of  responsibility,  and  of  sin  and 
guilt.  For  instance,  admitting  that  the  ancient 
Hindoos  and  other  nations  received  their  first 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        139 

impressions  of  God  from  the  observation  of 
the  objects  and  powers  of  nature,  why  should 
they  have  proceeded  to  identify  the  Power 
revealed  in  nature  with  the  Power  revealed  in 
conscience;  and  then  regarded  themselves  as 
under  moral  obligation  to  the  Being  whose 
power  was  revealed  in  the  hurricane  ?  Espe- 
cially, why  should  men  have  universally 
conceived  of  themselves  as  in  a  relation  of 
disharmony  with  this  Power  ?  Whence,  in  a 
word,  on  this  theory,  could  have  come  the 
universal  sense  of  sin  and  guilt  ?  To  refer  to 
the  fact  that  the  powers  of  nature  often 
appear  unfriendly  to  man,  is  an  inadequate 
explanation,  for  often,  on  the  contrary,  they  ap- 
pear kindly  and  helpful ;  while  the  sense  of  sin 
and  disharmony  with  the  unseen  Being  is 
practically  continuous  and  universal ;  and  is 
most  deeply  felt  by  the  purest  and  the  noblest 
natures.  So,  in  this  theory,  we  see  again 
illustrated  that  same  obliviousness  to  the 
profound  significance  of  man's  consciousness 
of  sin  and  guilt,  which  is  so  characteristic  of 
modern  naturalistic  theories  of  the  origin  and 
growth  of  religion. 


140       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

But  it  is  time  that  we  turn  our  attention 
to  the  professor's  historical  argument.  He 
asserts  that  the  genesis  and  order  of  the 
development  which  he  maintains,  is  historically 
evidenced  by  the  course  of  religious  thought 
in  India ;  namely,  that  the  Hindoos  began 
with  the  worship  of  what  he  calls  semi-tangible 
objects,  mountains,  rivers,  etc. ;  and  then 
gradually  rose,  through  the  worship  of  intan- 
gible objects,  such  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the 
sky,  etc.,  through  polytheism,  to  the  worship 
and  recognition  of  one  sole  and  only  God. 
But  the  facts  which  he  adduces  fail  to  prove 
his  theory  as  to  the  origin  and  development 
of  religion. 

First,  because  even  if  we  should  grant  that 
there  was  no  trace  of  the  recognition  and 
worship  of  one  personal  God  in  the  Rig  Veda, 
this  would  prove  nothing  as  to  the  absolute 
beginning  of  religion.  No  one  pretends  that 
the  Vedas  give  the  absolute  beginning  of 
religion,  even  among  the  ancient  Aryans. 
Even  though  the  earliest  form  of  worship 
which  we  find  in  Hindoo  literature  is  henothe- 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        141 

ism,  or  nature-worship,  this  does  not  prove 
that  religion  began  with  henotheisrn,  or  nature- 
worship.  Why  may  not  this  have  been  a 
degraded  form  of  religion,  which  had  suc- 
ceeded to  an  earlier  and  purer  creed  ?  For 
that  the  nature-worship  which  we  find  in  the 
earliest  Vedic  hymns,  1000-1500  B.C.,  has 
come  down  from  primitive  times,  is  asserted 
by  no  one. 

Much  is  made  indeed  of  the  history  of  the 
word  deva,  finally  applied  to  God.  We  are  told 
that  the  word  first  meant  simply  "bright"; 
then  was  applied  to  a  whole  class  of  objects  of 
worship  as  "  bright  ones  " ;  and  hence  came  to 
mean  "a  god,"  as  one  of  many  bright  ones,  re- 
garded as  objects  of  worship ;  and,  finally,  came 
to  denote  the  one  supreme  God.  Hence  it  is 
argued  that  the  idea  of  "God"  must  have  arisen 
subsequent  to  the  idea  of  "  gods."  But  the  argu- 
ment is  inadequate  to  establish  the  conclusion. 
First,  because  we  have  not  in  this  word  a  record 
of  primitive  thought,  but  of  a  comparatively 
late  period  in  religious  development.  Again,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  we  find  the  idea  of  a  supreme 


142       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    KEL1GION. 

God  existing  among  ancient  races,  long  before 
the  history  of  this  word  deva  begins. 

All  that  is  said  with  regard  to  the  history  of 
this  word  loses  its  force  as  argument,  so  soon  as 
we  thus  recall  to  mind  that  it  takes  us  back 
nowhere  near  the  beginning  of  religion.  To 
assume  that  men  must  have  thought  of  the 
"  bright  ones,"  or  "  the  strong  ones,"  as  many, 
before  they  could  have  reached  the  concept  of 
one  Being,  to  whom  brightness  or  strength 
could  be  imputed  in  the  highest  degree,  is  to 
assume  what  cannot  be  proved  until  we  can 
somewhere  find  some  historical  record  of  the 
absolute  beginning  of  religious  thought,  not 
merely  among  the  Hindoos  or  the  Aryans, 
but  in  the  whole  human  race.  The  history 
of  India,  or  even  of  the  whole  Aryan  family 
of  languages,  does  not  take  us  within  sight  of 
this.  Indeed,  we  could  not  make  stronger 
statements  on  this  point  than  we  find  in  Pro- 
fessor Max  Mliller's  own  writings.  Although 
he  asserts,  that  "  in  the  ancient  religion  of 
India"  we  can  "watch  the  development  of 
religion,  though  in  one  stream  only,  from  its 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        143 

very  beginning  to  its  very  end,"  1  yet,  again 
and  again  elsewhere,  even  in  the  same  course 
of  lectures,  he  himself,  in  so  many  words,  con- 
tradicts this  unguarded  statement. 

Thus,  e.g.,  he  says:  "There  are  vast  distances 
beyond  the  hymns  of  the  Veda,  and  many 
things  even  in  the  earliest  hymns  become  intel- 
ligible only  if  we  look  upon  them,  not  as  just 
arising,  but  as  having  passed  already  through 
many  a  metamorphosis."2  So,  again,  we  read: 
"  No  doubt  between  the  first  daybreak  of  human 
thought  and  the  first  hymns  of  praise  (in  the 
Veda)  there  may  be  —  nay,  there  must  be  —  a 
gap  that  can  only  be  measured  by  generations, 
by  hundreds,  aye,  by  thousands  of  years." 3 
And,  yet  again,  in  "  Physical  Religion  "  he  tells 
us  that  in  the  Vedas  much  is  "  secondary,  nay, 
tertiary,  and  altogether  modern,  in  one  sense  of 
the  word."  4 

This  is  all  true ;  and  the  same  may  be 
said  of  that  word  deva,  which  is  made  to 
carry  so  much  weight  in  the  argument.  Even 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  34.  2  Ib.  p.  85. 

3  Ib.  p.  231.  *  Op.  cit.  p.  15. 


144      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

the  earliest  period  to  which  we  can  trace  it 
back  in  the  cognate  languages,  is  still  also 
"  altogether  modern,  in  one  sense  of  the  word." 
How  then  can  any  argument  be  based  upon 
it,  unless  one  can  prove  that  in  this  instance 
the  primitive  sense  of  the  term  had  persisted 
for  ages  without  man  having  yet  been  able  to 
clamber  up  by  its  aid  to  the  definite  conception 
of  one  personal  God  ? 

In  view  then  of  the  professor's  own  more 
accurate  statements,  it  seems  that  we  cannot, 
in  the  ancient  religions  of  India,  certainly 
"  trace  the  development  of  religious  thought 
from  its  very  beginning  to  its  very  end."  But 
if  not,  then  what  proof  have  we  from  the  history 
of  the  Hindoo,  or  even  of  Aryan  religion,  that 
man  began  his  religious  life  with  the  adoration 
of  the  infinite  as  revealed  through  his  senses 
in  nature  ? 

In  the  second  place,  and  apart  from  this, 
Professor  Max  Miiller  has  failed  to  show  that 
the  order  of  religious  development  in  India 
was  such  as  his  theory  requires.  It  was  essen- 
tial to  his  argument  to  have  demonstrated  that 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        145 

the  most  ancient  hymns  of  the  Veda  are  those 
which  are  addressed  to  semi-tangible  objects, 
such  as  the  soma  juice,  mountains,  rivers,  and 
trees;  and  to  intangible  objects,  like  the  sky, 
the  sun,  the  storm ;  and  that  the  hymns 
addressed  to  one  God  and  Father  of  all,  are 
the  most  modern.  But  this  order  of  succes- 
sion he  has  not  even  tried  to  establish.  It 
was  nothing  to  the  point  merely  to  cite, 
as  he  does,  from  the  Vedas,  hymns  to  the 
mountains,  the  sun,  the  heaven,  the  supreme 
God,  as  objects  of  worship;  except  he  also 
should  prove  that  the  chronological  order  of 
these  was  as  his  theory  required.  Singularly 
enough,  this  he  has  not  attempted ;  perhaps  it 
was  an  impossible  task ;  but  the  demonstration 
was  none  the  less  essential  to  his  argument. 

Not  only  so,  but  he  candidly  admits  facts 
which  show  that  the  order  required  by  his 
theory  was  not  the  actual  order  of  history. 
The  worship  of  the  sun,  an  intangible  object,  he 
tells  us,  preceded  that  of  the  class  of  semi-tangi- 
ble objects.  This  looks  like  a  religious  degener- 
ation descending  to  less  and  less  worthy  symbols 


14G      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

of  the  Deity  as  objects  of  worship.  So  he  tells 
us  that  the  oldest  deity  of  which  we  have  any 
trace  in  the  Vedic  religion,  "  one  of  the  oldest, 
indeed,  of  the  whole  Aryan  race,"  was  Dyaus, 
which  is  commonly  said  to  mean  "  sky,"  but 
which  he  thinks  would  be  better  denned  as  "  the 
bright  one,"  "  the  shining  one,"  with  special 
reference  to  the  luminous  heaven.1  This  deity 
is  often  addressed  as  Dyauspitar  (Lat.  Ju-piter), 
lit.,  "  Heaven-father."  A  less  worthy  sym- 
bolism did  not  precede,  but  followed,  the  days 
when  Dyaus  was  God. 

So  there  are  hymns  in  the  Rig  Veda  which 
express  the  recognition  of  and  worship  of  one 
sole  and  personal  God.  According  to  the 
theory  before  us,  these  should  be  the  latest 
of  all  of  the  hymns.  But  this  is  not  proved, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Professor 
Max  Miiller  believes  it  to  be  true. 

The  fact  is,  that  in  the  Rig  Veda  we  find  side 
by  side  with  the  grossest  nature-worship  a  lofty 
theism  which  sometimes  reminds  us  of  the 
Psalms  of  David.  That  the  former  preceded  the 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,1'  p.  282. 


PROFESSOR    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        147 

latter  in  the  belief  of  the  people,  there  is  not  the 
slightest  proof.  Most  admirable  are  the  words 
of  the  professor  with  regard  to  the  succession  of 
thought  in  the  Vedas  ;  of  which  he  says  :  — 

"  By  the  side  of  much  that  sounds  recent,  there 
is  much  that  sounds  ancient  and  primitive.  And 
here  we  ought,  I  think,  to  learn  a  lesson  from 
archaeology,  and  not  seek  to  lay  down  from 
the  beginning  a  succession  of  sharply  divided 
periods  of  thought.  .  .  .  There  are  in  the  Veda 
thoughts  as  rude  and  crude  as  any  paleolothic 
weapons ;  but  by  the  side  of  them  we  find 
thoughts  with  all  the  sharpness  of  iron  and  all 
the  brilliancy  of  bronze.  Are  we  to  say  that 
the  bright  and  brilliant  thoughts  must  be  more 
modern  than  the  rudely  chipped  flints  that  lie 
by  their  side?  " 

Finally,  it  is  to  be  remarked  as  a  very  sin- 
gular defect  in  Professor  Max  Miiller's  writings 
on  this  subject,  that  he  apparently  confounds 
monotheism  with  pantheism.  It  is,  indeed,  quite 
true  that  now  and  then  he  uses  expressions 
which  —  might  we  but  take  them  by  them- 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  239,  240. 


148      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

selves — would  be  naturally  understood  as  im- 
plying the  theistic  view  of  the  nature  of  God. 
Thus,  in  one  instance,  he  even  says  that  the 
idea  of  one  personal  God  is  "  the  highest  form 
.  .  .  which  man  feels  inclined  to  give  to  the 
infinite":1  while  once  and  again  he  speaks 
of  God  as  our  Father  in  heaven,,  in  words  which 
must  find  an  echo  in  every  truly  Christian 
heart.  But,  unfortunately,  such  words  do  not 
stand  alone,  but  are  interchanged  with  others, 
and  are  qualified  and  explained  in  such  a  way 
that  it  becomes  very  difficult  to  believe  that 
the  writer  uses  the  terms  employed  in  the 
sense  in  which  Christians  commonly  understand 
them. 

A  striking  example  of  this  is  found  in  the 
passage  in  which  he  tells  us  that  "  the  ancients 
learnt,  and  we  all  have  to  learn  it,  that  we 
must  take  out  of  that  word  ' father'  one  pred- 
icate after  another,  —  all,  in  fact,  that  is  con- 
ceivable in  it,  —  if  we  wish  to  apply  it  still  to 
God."  It  is  true  that,  taken  by  themselves, 
such  expressions  might  be  interpreted  as  inti- 

1  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  30:}. 


PROFESSOK    MAX    MULLER's    THEORY.        149 

mating  such  a  conception  of  the  nature  of  the 
Divine  Being  as  was  held  and  argued  by  Chris- 
tian men  like  Dean  Mansell  and  Sir  William 
Hamilton  ;  a  conception  which,  however,  —  we 
do  well  to  remember, — was  afterward  logi- 
cally developed  into  complete  agnosticism  by 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer. 

With  Professor  Max  Mliller,  however,  it  seems 
clear  that,  if  we  allow  him  to  interpret  him- 
self, these  expressions  must  be  understood  in 
a  pantheistic  sense.  Certain  it  is,  that  when 
he  speaks  so  often  of  the  Deity  as  the  "  true 
Self  of  the  world  "  and  « the  Self  of  all  Selfs,"  l 
he  is  using  forms  of  speech  essentially  identical 
with  those  which  one  may  hear  any  day  from 
the  Brahmans  of  to-day  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ganges.  That  our  understanding  of  his  words 
is  shared  by  learned  and  cultivated  Hindoos, 
is  apparently  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  his 
Hibbert  Lectures  on  the  Origin  of  Religion 
have  been  so  highly  appreciated  by  the  pan- 
theistic Hindoos,  that  they  have  been  trans- 
lated by  scholarly  natives  of  India  into  two 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  p.  384  et  passim. 


150      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

or    three    of    the     chief    vernaculars    of    that 
country. 

But,  surely,  when  the  Hindoo  speaks  of  God 
as  one,  he  means  something  very  different  from 
that  which  the  Christian  theist  means,  when 
using  the  same  expression.  Monotheism  and 
pantheism  are  not  identical,  but  denote  mu- 
tually exclusive  beliefs.  Christian  theism  no 
doubt  regards  God  as  /xoVo?,  yet  not,  like  Hin- 
dooism  and  pantheism  everywhere,  as  TO  /xoVo*>, 
but  6  /xoVos ;  not  as  the  Only  because  the  All, 
the  only  real  existence,  but  as  the  only  true 
and  living  God,  immanent  indeed  in  all,  but 
far  transcending  all,  in  his  own  eternal  per- 
sonality. 


LECTURE   V. 

THE  TRUE   GENESIS   OF   RELIGION. 

IP  religion  did  not  originate  with  fetish  or 
spirit-worship,  through  a  mistaken  apprehen- 
sion of  all  nature  as  living,  nor  with  the 
worship  of  ancestors,  nor  with  the  apprehen- 
sion, through  sense-perception,  of  the  infinite, 
as  defined  by  Professor  Max  Miiller,  how  then 
are  we  to  explain  its  origin  ? 

We  reply  that  in  the  origin  of  religion,  we 
have  to  recognise  two  factors,  the  one  subjective, 
the  other  objective.  The  subjective  factor  we 
find  in  the  nature  of  man.  We  affirm  that 
in  virtue  of  the  very  constitution  of  his 
spiritual  nature,  man  necessarily  believes  in 
the  existence  of  a  Power  or  powers,  superior 
to  himself,  to  which  he  stands  in  necessary 
relation,  and  by  which  his  destiny  is  deter- 
mined. 

One  can  hardly  express  this  better  than  by 

151 


152      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

saying  that  man  is  naturally  endowed  with  a 
religious  faculty.  It  is  not  intended,  indeed, 
to  distinguish  this  sharply  from  the  reason, 
the  affections,  or  the  will,  as  these  are  distin- 
guished from  one  another ;  but  simply  to 
affirm  that  in  the  normal  exercise  of  all  these 
powers,  man  is  naturally,  and  almost  inevitably, 
constrained  to  regard  himself  as  in  necessary 
relation  to  an  unseen  Power  or  powers,  superior 
to  himself,  and  conditioning  alike  his  past, 
his  present,  and  his  future. 

That  this  belief  is  due,  not  to  education,  or 
tradition,  or  any  other  accidental  cause,  but 
to  the  constitution  of  man's  nature,  is  demon- 
strated by  the  fact  that  religion,  in  the  sense 
in  which  we  have  defined  it,  is  universal.  That/ 
religion  is  universal  is  declared  with  emphasis 
by  unbiassed  specialists  like  Quatrefages,  who 
has  said  that  "  we  nowhere  find  either  a  great 
human  race,  or  even  a  division,  however 
unimportant,  of  that  race,  professing  atheism." 
He  affirms  that  two  beliefs  are  practically 
universal :  first,  "  a  belief  in  beings  superior  to 

1  "  The  Human  Species,"  3d  ed.  p.  483. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          153 

man,"  and  therefore  "  capable  of  exercising  a 
good  or  evil  influence  on  his  destiny ";  and, 
second,  a  "  conviction  that  the  existence  of 
man  is  not  limited  to  the  present  life,  but 
that  there  remains  for  him  a  future  beyond 
the  grave." 1  But  where  these  beliefs  are 
found,  there  we  have  religion  ;  religion,  then, 
is  universal. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  religion  appears 
under  widely  different  external  manifestations. 
It  may  be  very  elementary,  almost  devoid  of 
rite  or  ceremony,  or  it  may  be  connected  with 
an  elaborate  symbolic  ritual.  Man  may  recog- 
nise God  as  one,  or  he  may  believe  in  gods 
many ;  or  stranger  still,  he  may,  as  in  the 
original  religion  taught  by  the  Buddha,  decline 
to  affirm  the  mysterious  Power  which  deter- 
mines all,  to  be  in  any  sense  a  God ;  and 
represent  it  rather  as  impersonal  and  non- 
substantial,  the  power  of  Karma,  "  action." 
But  whatever  form  the  conception  of  the 
Supreme  Power  may  take,  whether  it  be 
regarded  as  a  personal  and  almighty  Being, 

1  "The  Human  Species,"  3d  ed.  p.  484. 


154      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

as  by  the  Christian,  the  Jew,  and  the  Moham- 
medan ;  or  as  the  spirit  or  fetish,  worshipped 
by  the  savage;  or  as  the  nameless  "Adrishfa" 
or  "Unseen"  of  the  Hindoo,  or  the  still  more 
mysterious  and  incomprehensible  Karma  of 
the  Buddhist ;  in  every  case  alike,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  everywhere  and  always,  man 
has  a  religion.  This  is  so  manifest,  that  the 
denial  of  the  fact,  once  not  uncommon,  in 
our  day,  after  more  careful  and  extensive 
research,  is  much  more  rarely  heard.  It  is 
commonly  admitted  that  religion  is  a  universal 
phenomenon,  and  that  exceptions  —  if  any 
exist  —  must  be  regarded  as  abnormal.1 

We  have,  then,  to  inquire  why  this  should 
be  so ;  and  how  it  is  that  religious  conceptions 
and  feelings  arise  thus  universally  in  the  mind 

and  heart  of  man. 

te 
The  deepest  reason  of  this  is  to  be  found  in 
lan  himself.     In  the  first  place,  man  cannot 
~ 

4  l  Of  many  illustrations  which  might  be  given,  we  may  note  the 
emphatic  words  of  Professor  Tiele  :  "  The  statement  that  there  are 
nations  or  tribes  which  possess  no  religion,  rests  either  on  inaccu- 
rate observation,  or  on  a  confusion  of  ideas."  —  "Outlines  of  a 
History  of  Religion,"  p.  6. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          155 

help  recognising  that  he  is  a  dependent  being ; 
dependent,  not  merely  upon  other  human  beings, 
as  his  parents,  friends,  and  rulers,  but,  in  com- 
mon with  all  of  these,  dependent  upon  a  Power 
which  is  above  all  men;  a  Power  which  man 
cannot  control,  and  which  can  effectually  dis- 
pose of  all  that  concerns  him,  whether  for  pros- 
perity or  adversity,  weal  or  woe. 

Nor  have  men  generally  been  able  to  content 
themselves  with  regarding  this  power  as  merely 
that  of  material  nature,  upon  the  operations 
of  which  their  physical  well-being  depends.  It 
is  the  fact,  whatever  the  reason  may  be,  that 
even  when  natural  objects  have  been  wor- 
shipped, they  have  been  regarded  by  the  wor- 
shipper as  something  more  than  merely  material 
objects ;  as  the  symbols  or  the  manifestations 
of  an  invisible  Power  or  powers.  And  if  we 
ask  why  men  so  often,  as  in  all  animistic  and 
polytheistic  religions,  should  have  assumed, 
behind  the  wind,  the  storm,  the  lightning,  and 
other  natural  phenomena,  a  living  Power,  the 
answer  can  only  be  found  in  the  nature  of  man. 

Logically,  prior  to  the  consciousness  of  the 


156      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Non-Ego  is  that  of  the  Ego.  But  every  man 
who  is  conscious  of  self  is  conscious  of  that 
self  as  possessed  of  power.  Hence,  inasmuch 
as  men  know  in  consciousness  that  the  reason 
for  all  the  movements  of  the  body  is  found 
in  an  invisible  power,  the  conscious  self,  which 
has  its  fullest  manifestation  in  free  volition, 
they  are  irresistibly  constrained  to  postulate 
an  analogous  invisible  power,  as  also  the 
ultimate  cause  of  all  activities  of  material 
nature.  In  this,  the  so-called  nature-religions 
are  not  wrong,  but  right.  And  so  it  comes 
to  pass  that,  naturally,  the  most  cultivated 
and  most  debased  peoples  alike  regard  them- 
selves as  in  a  relation  of  dependence  to  an 
invisible  Power  or  powers.  And  while  we 
may  not,  with  Schleiermacher,  make  the  whole 
of  religion  to  consist  in  this  sense  of  depend- 
ence, we  shall  rightly  regard  this  as  one  very 
important  factor,  on  the  subjective  side,  in  the 
genesis  of  religion. 

But  man  is  constrained  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  a  supernatural  Power,  not  only 
by  his  sense  of  dependence,  but  by  the  necessary 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.  157 

laws  of  thought.  For  undeniably  all  that  is 
presented  to  our  perceptions  is  presented  as 
conditioned  and  contingent.  And  the  more 
that  man  advances  in  his  knowledge  of  the 
universe,  the  more  clear  it  becomes  that  this 
is  a  universal  fact.  But  this  being  so,  man 
is  logically  compelled  to  believe  in  the  existence 
of  somewhat  which  is  not  conditioned,  but 
conditioning,  itself  ever  remaining  uncondi- 
tioned ;  a  power,  not  contingent,  but  necessary, 
apart  from  which  neither  man  nor  the  world 
could  have  existence.  For  of  the  conditioned, 
the  conditioning  is  the  necessary  correlate, 
such  that  the  former  cannot  be  thought 
without  the  thought  of  the  latter;  even  as 
the  affirmation  of  a  circle  carries  with  it  by 
necessary  implication  the  affirmation  of  a 
centre  of  that  circle.  In  this  way,  again, 
man  is  compelled,  no  less  as  a  reasoning  being 
than  as  a  dependent  being,  to  believe  in  an 
invisible  Power,  to  which  he  and  all  the 
universe  stand  in  necessary  relation,  and  on 
which  the  welfare  of  all  depends.  And  in 
this  fact  we  have  further  evidence  that  the 


158      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

origin   of  religion  is  to  be  found  in  the  very 
nature  of  man. 

But  this  is  not  yet  all.  Man  universally 
is  possessed  of  a  faculty  which  we  call  con- 
science. In  view  of  now  well-ascertained  facts, 
the  assertion  of  some  earlier  writers,  like  Sir 
John  Lubbock,  that  in  many  savage  races  the 
moral  sense  is  wanting,  must  be  declared  a 
mistake.  Over  against  this  we  may  place  the 
deliberate  affirmation  of  Quatrefages,  who  has 
said :  — 

"  Confining  ourselves  rigorously  to  the  region  ] 
of  facts,  and  carefully  avoiding  the  territory 
of  philosophy  and  theology,  we  may  state  with- 
out hesitation  that  there  is  no  human  society, 
or  even  association,  in  which  the  idea  of  good 
and  evil  is  not  represented  by  certain  acts 
regarded  by  the  members  of  that  society  or 
association  as  morally  good  and  morally  bad. 
Even  among  robbers  and  pirates  theft  is  re- 
garded as  a  misdeed,  sometimes  as  a  crime,  and 
severely  punished,  while  treachery  is .  branded 
with  infamy.  The  facts  noticed  by  Wallace 
among  the  Karubars  and  Santals  show  how 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          159 

the  consciousness  of  moral  good  and  truth  is 
anterior  to  experience  and  independent  of  ques- 
tions of  utility."1 

Men  are  not  indeed  agreed  as  to  what  par- 
ticular actions  and  feelings  should  be  regarded 
as  good  or  bad;  but  this  does  not  affect  the 
present  argument,  which  depends  solely  on 
the  fact  that  men  universally  recognise  a  dis- 
tinction in  the  moral  quality  of  actions. 

But  not  only  do  all  men  recognise  such  a  dis- 
tinction, but  also  therewith  an  imperative  obli- 
gation to  do  whatever  they  regard  as  morally 
right,  and  not  to  do  what  they  regard  as  morally 
wrong ;  and,  finally,  in  the  heart  of  every  man 
is  heard,  so  to  speak,  a  voice  which  signifies 
approval  when  he  does  that  which  is  right, 
and  condemnation  when  he  does  that  which 
is  wrong  ;  awakening,  moreover,  an  apprehen- 
sion of  retribution  as  to  follow  the  wrong  doing. 
Let  it  be  carefully  observed  that  our  argument 
is  conditioned  by  no  theory  as  to  the  origin  of 
these  feelings,  but  simply  on  the  fact  that  these 
phenomena  universally  appear. 

1  -The  Human  Species,"  3d  ed.  p.  459. 


160      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Now  it  is  most  significant,  that,  whether  it  be 
possible  to  reconcile  the  fact  with  certain  theories 
or  not,  it  is  the  special  mark  of  these  dicta 
of  conscience,  that  they  never  present  them- 
selves in  consciousness  either  as  originating 
with  the  man  himself,  or  as  the  expression  of 
a  law  imposed  upon  him  by  other  men.  Rightly 
or  wrongly,  they  are  felt  to  be  the  expression 
of  the  will  of  a  Power  above  the  individual, 
and  above  all  men,  to  which  every  individual 
stands  related,  by  no  choice  of  his  own,  but  by 
a  necessity  of  his  nature.  And  thus  it  is  that 
the  conscience,  as  a  faculty  belonging  to  man's 
nature,  becomes  a  factor  in  the  origin  of  relig- 
ion. Man  is  religious  in  virtue  of  his  nature  as 
a  moral  being. 

One  other  phenomenon,  scarcely  less  signifi- 
cant, claims  our  notice.  Everywhere  and  al- 
ways it  is  to  be  observed  that  man  craves 
fellowship  with  the  Being  or  beings,  the  God 
or  gods,  in  whose  existence  he  is  constrained 
to  believe.  To  this  fact  every  form  of  religion 
bears  witness,  and  in  its  teaching  and  practice 
has  in  some  way  or  other  given  it  expression. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.  161 

Thus  religion  arises  out  of  man's  nature  as  a 
spiritual  being. 

All  these  facts,  then,  man's  sense  of  depend- 
ence, the  laws  which  determine  his  thought, 
the  phenomena  of  conscience,  his  craving  after 
fellowship  with  that  Power  to  which  he  believes 
himself  to  be  thus  mysteriously  related,  —  all 
are  practically  universal,  and  demonstrably 
independent,  as  regards  their  origin,  of  either 
education  or  culture.  By  this,  indeed,  it  is  not 
intended  that  all  men  have  consciously  reasoned 
their  way  from  such  premises  to  the  belief  in 
a  supernatural  Power  or  powers,  or  that  they, 
if  asked,  could  formulate  the  subjective  process 
of  which  such  belief,  and  all  religion,  is  the 
manifested  result.  But  it  is  meant  that  this 
recognition  of  an  invisible,  supernatural  Power 
which  is  common  to  religion,  everywhere  and 
always,  so  inevitably  arises  out  of  the  ordinary 
experiences  of  man,  that  practically  this  belief 
is  universal. 

But  if  this  be  true,  then  we  are  warranted 
in  affirming  that  religion  must  have  its  origin, 
subjectively  considered,  in  the  very  constitution 
M 


162       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

of  human  nature.  Man  is  religious  simply 
because  he  is  so  constituted  that  for  him  to 
be  religious  is  natural,  and  to  be  irreligious  or 
non-religious  is  contra-natural.  For  in  the 
whole  kingdom  of  life,  whatever  we  find  all 
the  individuals  of  any  class,  under  normal  con- 
ditions, habitually  desiring  or  doing,  we  rightly 
account  for  such  habits  by  saying  that  they 
are  due  to  the  constitution  of  the  nature  of 
that  order  of  beings.  If  the  ox  everywhere 
and  always  eats  the  green  thing  of  the  earth, 
this  is  because  it  is  his  nature.  If  the  duck 
everywhere  and  always  seeks  the  water,  this 
is  because  this  is  its  nature.  So  as  to  the 
origin  of  religion.  If  the  subjective  phenom- 
ena which  have  been  reviewed  are  universal, 
and  have  universally  given  rise  to  religion, 
and  have  found  in  various  religions  of  men  a 
more  or  less  perfect  expression,  evidently  we 
are  justified  in  saying,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
other  illustrations  given,  that  religion  must 
have  its  origin  in  the  nature  of  man.  He  is 
so  constituted  that,  normally,  he  is  a  religious 
being,  just  as  he  is  so  constituted  that,  normally, 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGIOX.  163 

he  is  a  rational  being.  This  fact  incontrover- 
tibly  distinguishes  man  even  from  all  those 
higher  orders  of  the  animal  kingdom  to  which, 
zoologically,  he  is  most  nearly  related.  Quatre- 
fages  is  right  in  saying  that  the  religious  and 
moral  phenomena  which  we  see  in  man,  "iso- 
late" him  from  animals.1  Never  has  even  the 
most  intelligent  chimpanzee  shown  any  sign  of 
a  tendency  to  animism  or  fetish-worship,  or 
made  a  god  out  of  some  dead  monkey  gone 
before  him,  or  been  discovered  clasping  his 
hands  in  adoration  of  the  rising  sun.  That 
men  of  such  standing  as  the  learned  Hibbert 
Lecturer  should  deny  that  man  has  any  relig- 
ious faculty  which  distinguishes  him  from  the 
brute,  is  difficult  indeed  to  understand.  It  is 
a  striking  illustration  of  the  influence  which 
a  false  philosophy,  when  accepted,  may  have, 
in  blinding  even  a  learned  and  honest  man  to 
facts  which  are  irreconcilable  with  it.  None 

i"The  Human  Species,"  3d  ed.  p.  459.  So  Seville :  "A 
people  absolutely  destitute  of  any  religious  notion  has  never  been 
discovered."  —  "Prolegomena  of  the  History  of  Religions,"  trans- 
lated from  the  French  by  A.  S.  Squire,  1884,  p.  201. 


164      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

the  less  confidently,  because  of  such  denials, 
may  we  affirm  that  man,  unlike  the  brutes,  is 
religious  in  virtue  of  the  constitution  of  his 
nature. 

Nevertheless,  it  has  often  been  strenuously 
insisted,  as  in  unanswerable  contradiction  to 
this  affirmation,  that  not  merely  individuals, 
but  whole  races  and  tribes  of  men  exist,  who 
exhibit  no  evidence  of  any  religious  belief, 
feeling,  or  action.  Sir  John  Lubbock,  as  is  well 
known,  has  instanced  many  such  supposed 
cases  in  his  "Prehistoric  Times,"  and  many 
other  writers  of  eminence  have  repeated  his 
assertions.  Reference  has  been  made  to  this 
allegation  in  a  former  lecture,  but  the  impor- 
tance of  the  question  is  such  that  these  state- 
ments deserve  a  fuller  notice  at  this  point. 

In  many  instances  where  investigators  have 
declared  that  no  form  of  religion  existed,  the 
term  "religion"  has  been  evidently  employed 
in  a  very  restricted  sense,  applicable  only  to  its 
higher  forms.  Hence  because  in  this  or  that 
tribe  some  have  not  discovered  anything  which 
corresponded  to  their  own  elevated  conception 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          165 

of  religion,  they  have — correctly  enough,  in 
the  sense  in  which  they  used  the  term  — 
denied  in  these  cases  its  existence.  With  a 
more  correct  conception  as  to  what  alone  are 
the  essential  elements  in  religion,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  many  of  such  statements  would 
never  have  been  made. 

It  is,  again,  of  great  importance  to  observe 
the  fact  that  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  for 
foreigners,  even  when  they  have  resided  for 
some  time  among  a  barbarous  people,  —  and 
very  much  more  so  for  a  casual  traveller,  —  to 
gain  accurate  information  as  to  their  religious 
beliefs.  As  a  general  rule,  such  peoples  are 
disinclined  to  profane  —  as  they  imagine  — 
their  religious  beliefs  and  practices  by  disclosing 
them  freely  to  strangers  and  aliens.  Then, 
again,  the  forms  in  which  the  religious  beliefs 
and  feelings  of  degraded  savage  races  are 
expressed,  are  often  so  entirely  different 
from  anything  of  the  kind  familiar  to  the 
foreigner,  that  even  when  their  religious  rites 
are  observed,  he  fails  to  recognise  their  real 
character.  Still  further,  even  in  cases  where 


166      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

he  has  so  far  gained  the  confidence  of  the 
people  as  to  overcome  their  natural  reluctance 
to  speak  to  him  of  such  matters,  there  remains 
the  great  difficulty  of  language.  The  foreigner 
uses  terms  in  one  sense  ;  they,  in  another ;  so 
that  it  is  often  only  by  the  exercise  of  the 
greatest  skill,  ingenuity,  and  patience,  that  one 
succeeds  in  ascertaining  the  real  beliefs  of  those 
to  whom  he  is  speaking. 

Finally,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  in  many 
cases  where  earlier  investigators  have  reported 
that  no  religion  existed,  subsequent  and  more 
prolonged  and  careful  inquiry  and  observation 
have  shown  such  statements  to  be  incorrect. 
This  has  occurred  so  often,  that  even  if  a  few 
cases  remain  in  which  such  assertions  are  still 
made  without  positive  disproval,  the  presump- 
tion becomes  very  strong  that  further  research 
would  disclose  the  existence  of  religious  beliefs 
and  actions  in  these  cases  also.1 

1  So  Tiele:  "No  tribe  or  nation  has  yet  been  met  with  desti- 
tute of  belief  in  any  higher  beings ;  and  travellers  who  asserted 
their  existence  have  been  afterwards  refuted  by  the  facts. ' '  — 
"Outlines  of  the  History  of  Religion,"  p.  6. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OP    RELIGION.          167 

But  it  is  again  objected,  that  whatever  may 
be  said  as  to  races  and  tribes  of  men,  it  must 
be  admitted  that  many  individuals  in  all  races 
have  been  sincere  atheists;  whence  it  is  urged 
that  however  common  belief  in  a  supernatural 
Power  or  powers  may  be,  it  cannot  be  due  to 
the  constitution  of  our  nature  ;  but  must  instead 
have  arisen  from  tradition,  education,  or  some 
unknown  adventitious  cause. 

In  reply  to  this,  attention  may  be  called  first 
to  the  fact  that  the  term  "  atheist,"  in  its  most 
usual  application,  denotes  only  those  who  deny 
the  existence  of  a  personal  God,  such  as  the 
Jewish,  Christian,  and  Mohammedan  Scriptures 
describe.  But  obviously,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  a  man  may  deny  the  existence  of  such  a 
Being,  and  yet  admit,  as  very  many  do,  the 
existence  of  a  Power  or  powers  invisible,  by 
which  his  destiny  is  determined ;  and  also, 
that  his  feeling  and  actions  may  be  deter- 
mined by  that  belief.  Such,  in  fact,  appears 
to  be  the  position  of  many  who  in  our  day  are 
called  agnostics,  as  also  it  is  that  of  pantheists 
and  of  orthodox  Buddhists.  Hence  it  is  evi- 


168      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

dent  that  such  persons  cannot  be  rightly  re- 
garded as  exceptions  to  the  statement  that 
religion,  in  the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  used 
in  these  lectures,  is  universal. 

In  the  second  place,  even  the  fact  that, 
besides  these,  some  men  are  atheists  in  the 
strict  sense  of  the  word,  cannot  be  justly  held 
to  disprove  the  truth  of  the  affirmation  of  the 
universality  of  religion.  There  are  not  a  few 
in  the  world  who  are  idiots  and  lunatics;  but 
no  one  would  think  of  urging  this  fact  as  dis- 
proving the  truth  of  the  proposition  that  man 
is  a  rational  being  in  virtue  of  his  nature. 
Instances  of  genuine  and  sincere  atheism  are 
so  few  that  they  must  be  regarded  as  abnormal 
exceptions  to  the  rule  which  is  practically  uni- 
versal, that  man  is  a  religious  being. 

It  is,  again,  of  decisive  significance  that  there 
is  no  evidence  that  atheism  is  ever  an  original 
phenomenon,  or  that  it  belongs  to  a  very  early 
stage  of  human  development,  as  that  which 
is  natural  to  man,  antecedent  to  reflection,  or 
to  the  influences  of  education  and  culture. 
On  the  contrary,  atheism  appears  most  fre- 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OB"    RELIGION.  169 

quently  among  the  most  highly  cultivated  of 
our  race,  with  whom  it  is  often  the  result  of 
an  ineffectual  effort  to  resolve  the  profound 
moral  and  metaphysical  difficulties  which  are 
confessedly  involved  in  the  affirmation  of  an 
almighty  personal  God ;  while,  in  other  cases, 
again,  one  cannot  close  the  eyes  to  the  fact 
that  atheism  is  loudly  proclaimed  by  men  who 
are  evidently  resolutely  given  to  courses  of 
life  which  must  inevitably  predispose  them  to 
silence,  or  as  far  as  possible  ignore,  the  witness 
of  conscience  and  the  testimony  of  nature  to 
the  existence  of  a  Power  which  is  governing 
the  world  on  principles  of  moral  law.  In  any 
case,  as  Quatrefages,  again,  has  said,  "we  no- 
where meet  with  atheism  except  in  an  erratic 
condition.  In  every  place,  and  at  all  times, 
the  mass  of  populations  have  escaped  it."1 

Still  less  is  it  inconsistent  with  the  affirma- 
tion of  the  universality  of  religion,  that  a  large 
part  of  the  human  race,  engrossed  in  the  eager 
pursuit  of  various  earthly  goods,  are  quite 
oblivious  of  the  existence  of  any  supernatural 

1  "The  Human  Species,"  pp.  482,  483. 


170      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Power,  or  of  their  relation  to  such  Power; 
any  more  than  when  we  see  now  and  then 
instances  of  unnatural  parents,  we  regard  this 
as  forbidding  the  affirmation  that  affection  for 
one's  offspring  is  an  attribute  which  belongs  to 
the  nature  of  man.  To  determine  that  which 
belongs  to  the  nature  of  any  creature  by  excep- 
tional deviations  from  ordinary  phenomena,  is 
most  unscientific.  That  which  is  natural  in 
man's  bodily  life  is  not  studied  to  the  best 
advantage  in  a  hospital. 

In  the  light  of  all  the  facts,  therefore,  we 
need  not  hesitate,  on  account  of  such  instances, 
to  affirm  that  religion  is  so  universal  that  it 
must  have  its  origin,  on  the  subjective  side,  in 
the  constitution  of  human  nature.  Religion 
exists  because  man  is  what  he  is ;  because  he 
is  naturally  and  normally  led  to  regard  himself 
and  the  universe  in  which  he  finds  himself,  as 
dependent  on  an  invisible  Power  or  powers, 
superior  to  himself  and  all  that  he  sees  about 
him,  with  which  Power  or  powers  he  feels  an 
instinctive  craving  to  be  on  terms  of  friend- 
ship and  fellowship. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          171 

Man,  then,  by  nature,  has  a  faculty  or  capac- 
ity for  religion.  Yet  that  alone  would  not 
account  for  religion.  A  man  may  have  eyes, 
but  as  long  as  he  is  shut  up  in  a  dark  cave,  he 
cannot  see.  So  a  man  might  have  a  faculty 
of  apprehending  God  and  his  relation  to  Him, 
but  without  a  revelation  of  Him  he  could  not 
have  a  religion.  The  phenomena  which  are 
presented  in  the  existence  and  the  history  of 
religion  would  be  still  inexplicable,  except  we 
assume,  not  merely  a  natural  capacity  in  man 
for  forming  religious  conceptions,  but  also, 
correlated  with  these,  a  revelation  of  God  to 
man,  both  original  and  universal.  It  is  not 
indeed  necessary,  in  order  to  account  for  the 
facts,  to  suppose  that  such  a  revelation  must 
have  been  given  in  a  supernatural  manner. 
Even  Holy  Scripture  does  not  so  represent 
the  case.1  But  an  objective  revelation,  in  some 
way,  of  the  existence,  and  to  some  extent, 
of  the  character,  of  God,  there  must  have  been 
from  the  beginning,  or  the  phenomena  pre- 
sented in  religion  are  unaccountable. 

1  See  e.g.  Ps.  xix.  aiid  Rom.  i.  20. 


172      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

For  the  fundamental  religious  beliefs  of  men 
are  marked  by  four  characteristics ;  namely, 
spontaneity,  universality,  great  intensity,  and 
invincible  persistency ;  and  for  each  and  all  of 
these,  any  theory  of  the  origin  of  religion  must 
be  required  to  account,  in  order  to  its  own 
vindication.  If  there  has  never  been  an  objec- 
tive revelation  of  the  existence  of  any  such 
Power  as  religious  faith  assumes,  these  char- 
acteristics of  religious  belief  are  all  utterly 
inexplicable. 

It  has  indeed  been  often  objected  that  the 
wide  acceptance  of  Buddhism  forbids  the  affir- 
mation that  these  four  characteristics  are 
essential  to  religion.  This  is  supposed  to  dis- 
prove the  assertion  that  religious  belief,  as 
defined  in  these  lectures,  is  either  spontaneous 
or  invincibly  persistent. 

Bat  the  objection  will  not  bear  close  exami- 
nation in  the  light  of  history.  On  the  contrary, 
the  history  of  Buddhism  is  one  of  the  most 
impressive  illustrations  possible  of  those  very 
characteristics  of  religious  belief  which  it  is 
supposed  by  some  to  disprove.  It  is  indeed 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          173 

true  that  according  to  the  earliest  Buddhist 
authorities,  the  Buddha  appears  not  indeed  to 
have  denied,  but  certainly  to  have  ignored,  the 
existence  of  a  personal  God,  the  First  Cause 
and  Moral  Governor  of  the  world.  Yet,  even 
so,  he  was  not  able  to  leave  wholly  out  of 
his  system  the  Hindoo  conception  of  super- 
natural beings  called  gods.  These  were  not 
indeed  represented  by  him  as  creators  or  rulers 
of  the  world,  but  they  were  nevertheless  super- 
natural beings,  living  and  acting  in  a  higher 
sphere  than  that  of  men ;  and  in  admitting 
these,  even  though  only  in  the  way  of  tolerance, 
into  a  subordinate  place  in  his  religious  system, 
the  Buddha  made  a  most  significant  concession 
to  the  imperative  demands  of  man's  religious 
nature.  But  this  did  not  suffice  to  satisfy  the 
cravings  of  the  human  heart ;  and  so  it  fol- 
lowed that  the  Northern  Buddhism,  most  fully 
developed  in  Thibet,  despite  the  authority  of 
the  Buddha,  elaborated  its  remarkable  concep- 
tion of  an  Adi  Buddha,  eternal,  almighty,  self- 
existent,  the  Author  of  all  being,  and  thereby 
furnished  one  of  the  most  decisive  proofs  which 


174      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

history  affords,  of  the  invincible  persistency  of 
man's  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  supernatural 
Power,  the  Cause  of  the  existence  of  man  and 
of  all  things. 

Affirming,  then,  the  four  characteristics  of 
religious  beliefs  above  named,  we  argue  that 
these  are  unaccountable  except  there  has  been, 
and  is,  a  veritable  revelation  of  a  God.  This 
is  necessary  to  account  for  the  spontaneity  and 
universality  of  religion.  It  is  of  course  quite 
true  that  there  is  much  in  the  religious  belief 
and  practices  of  different  peoples  which  is  not 
spontaneous,  as  it  is  not  universal ;  and  which 
may  be  sufficiently  explained  by  the  influence 
of  tradition,  or  example,  or  education.  But 
when  we  eliminate  all  such  beliefs  and  obser- 
vances, and  regard  simply  that  fundamental 
belief  in  the  existence  of  a  supernatural  Power 
or  powers  to  which  man  stands  mysteriously 
related,  which  is  common  to  all  religions ;  of 
this  common  conviction,  it  is  certain  that  neither 
tradition,  nor  the  presence  or  the  absence  of 
education  or  culture,  can  afford  an  adequate 
explanation. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.          175 

These  beliefs,  as  has  been  shown,  appear 
antecedent  to  and  independent  of  argument, 
alike  among  the  most  debased  savages,  and  the 
most  highly  cultivated  of  our  race,  no  less  in 
the  most  modern  than  in  the  most  ancient 
times.  Even  if  we  grant  that  in  experience 
men  derive  their  first  religious  beliefs  from  the 
instruction  and  example  of  their  immediate 
parents,  it  is  obvious  that  instruction  and 
example  would  fail  us  as  an  explanation  of 
the  origin  of  religious  beliefs  in  the  case  of 
the  first  man  or  men.  In  these,  we  must 
assume  the  belief  to  have  spontaneously  arisen. 
For  religious  belief,  in  the  first  instance,  either 
there  was  an  adequate  ground,  in  a  real 
objective  revelation  of  the  existence  of  a  God, 
and  of  man's  relation  to  him,  or  there  was 
not.  It  is  indeed  possible  for  a  man  to  affirm 
the  latter  alternative,  and  assume  that  the 
belief,  however  it  may  have  arisen  out  of  the 
nature  of  the  first  men,  was  the  result  of 
their  extremely  ignorant  and  semi-bestial 
condition.  But  if  this  were  so,  then  as  men 
increased  in  intelligence,  the  belief  ought  to  tend 


176       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

to   disappear;  which,    however,  is    contrary  to 
the  fact. 

Finally,  if  in  the  face  of  the  admitted 
phenomena  of  religious  belief,  the  inference 
of  an  objective. revelation  of  a  God  be  denied, 
this  denial  carries  with  it  into  every  depart- 
ment of  human  thought  the  most  destructive 
consequences.  For  it  is  certain  that  religious 
belief,  once  originated,  has  proved  one  of  the 
strongest  and  most  ineradicable  of  all  human 
convictions.  It  would  be  impossible  to 
instance  any  belief  common  to  mankind, 
which  has  everywhere  and  always  so  power- 
fully affected  human  action.  It  has  often 
prompted  individuals  and  whole  nations  and 
ranks  of  men  to  the  most  intense  and  long- 
continued  labours,  to  the  voluntary  endurance 
of  prolonged,  and  often  very  terrible,  hardships 
and  sufferings.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  art,  the  literature,  and  the  politics 
of  the  world  have  been  more  universally  and 
profoundly  affected,  both  directly  and  indirectly, 
by  the  religious  convictions  of  men,  than  by 
any  other  beliefs  held  in  common  by  the  race. 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.  177 

And  the  persistency  of  these  beliefs  has 
corresponded  with  their  intensity.  Never, 
either  among  the  most  degraded  or  the  most 
civilised  peoples,  has  atheism  for  any  time 
remained  the  professed  belief  of  even  a  small 
part  of  our  race.  Even  when,  in  individual 
communities,  as  in  France  at  the  close  of  the 
last  century,  it  has  seemed  as  if  now  religious 
belief  were  about  destroyed,  it  has  never  been 
possible  to  eradicate  it ;  and  repeatedly,  after 
such  temporary  decline  of  its  vigour,  it  has 
reasserted  itself  with  renewed  intensity. 

Now  if,  notwithstanding  this  spontaneity, 
universality,  intensity,  and  persistency  of  re- 
ligious belief,  we  assume  that  there  neither 
is,  nor  has  been  at  any  time,  any  revelation 
to  man  of  the  existence  of  such  a  Power  as 
religious  faith  assumes,  what  then  ?  Evidently 
there  is  but  one  alternative  left  us.  If  for 
religious  belief  there  is  no  such  objective 
ground,  then  it  follows  that  man  is  so  consti- 
tuted that,  with  very  rare  exceptions,  he 
spontaneously  believes,  and  that  with  the 
greatest  intensity  and  tenacity  of  conviction, 


178       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

what  is  false ;  and  this  in  reference  to  the 
most  momentous  matter  which  can  possibly 
come  before  his  mind.  But  if  this  be  the 
fact  in  respect  to  man's  universal,  spontaneous, 
and  so  persistent  belief  on  this  point,  it  must 
be  granted  as  quite  possible  that  he  should 
also  be  mistaken  in  any  or  all  other  similar 
spontaneous  and  persistent  beliefs.  But  if 
this  be  possible,  then,  since  all  knowledge  is 
conditioned  ultimately  on  the  assumption  of 
the  trustworthiness  of  our  spontaneous  and 
necessary  beliefs,  how  can  we  escape  the 
logical  conclusion  that  certitude  on  any  subject 
is  unattainable  ?  From  this  so  destructive 
and  fatal  conclusion  there  is  no  escape,  except 
by  assuming  that  the  fundamental  religious 
beliefs  of  man  have  been  determined  by  the 
fact  of  an  actual  revelation,  in  some  way, 
and  in  some  measure,  of  the  existence  and 
nature  of  such  a  Power  as  religion  contem- 
plates. 

And  we  shall  only  agree  with  the  great 
majority  of  mankind,  even  of  its  most  profound 
and  illustrious  thinkers,  when  we  affirm  that 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.  179 

such  a  revelation,  which  we  are  obliged  to 
postulate,  in  order  to  account  for  the  phenomena 
presented  by  religion,  is  a  perpetual  fact.  To 
exhibit  this  at  length,  the  limits  of  this  lecture 
forbid.  We  can  only  touch  upon  the  subject. 
In  the  first  place,  conscience,  of  which  we 
have  spoken  as  a  faculty,  also  involves  a  revela- 
tion of  Grod ;  even  though  it  be  often  obscured 
to  the  consciousness,  by  inattention,  prejudice, 
and  sin.  For  the  phenomena  of  conscience 
are  not  only  a  manifestation  of  the  nature  of 
man,  as  a  being  capable  of  recognising  moral 
law  and  religious  obligation,  but,  inseparably 
from  this,  they  also  manifest  a  Being  above 
man,  whose  will,  so  far  as  made  known,  man, 
whether  it  be  pleasing  to  him  or  not,  whether  it 
seem  to  his  present  worldly  advantage  or  not,  is 
under  an  irremovable  obligation  to  obey.  For 
whenever  a  man  does  what  is  wrong,  and  then 
instinctively  shrinks  with  dread  from  the  future, 
lest  somewhere  in  that  future  he  shall  meet  with 
retribution  for  that  wrong  doing,  he  thereby  in 
no  ambiguous  way  confesses  that  he  thinks  that 
he  perceives,  even  through  the  obscurity  of  this 


180       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

earthly  life,  a  Power  which  will  hold  him  re- 
sponsible for  that  breach  of  law ;  a  Power  from 
whose  reach  even  death  shall  not  certainly  enable 
him  to  escape.  Thus  it  follows  that  from  the 
very  beginning  of  his  moral  activity,  man  must 
have  been  brought  face  to  face,  in  the  sponta- 
neous operations  of  his  conscience,  with  a  revela- 
tion, more  or  less  clear,  of  the  being  and  will  of 
God ;  a  revelation  which  was  also  a  revelation 
of  his  character,  in  so  far  at  least  as  this,  that 
He  must  be  a  moral  Being  and  the  absolute 
Ruler  of  all  men. 

But  the  external  wrorld  has  also  ever  been  to 
man  a  revelation  of  the  existence  of  a  Power 
above  man,  and  above  all  nature.  Never,  except 
in  rare  and  erratic  cases,  have  men  been  able  to 
believe  that  the  sensible  world  was  its  own 
sufficient  cause  and  explanation.  To  say  no 
more,  man  cannot  well  help  seeing  that  the 
universe  reveals  a  Power  which,  even  if  it  be 
immanent  in  the  universe,  as  it  is,  is  yet  in 
so  far  distinct  from  it  that  in  some  way  the 
universe  must  be  its  product  and  effect.  Even 
such  an  extreme  evolutionist  as  Reville  is 


THE    TRUE    GENESIS    OF    RELIGION.  181 

willing  in  this  sense  to  admit  that  the 
phenomena  of  religion  require  us  to  believe 
that  God  has  revealed  himself  to  man ;  and 
that  man  "  was  so  constituted  that,  arrived  at  a 
certain  stage  in  his  psychical  development,  he 
must  become  sensible  of  the  reality  of  the 
Divine  influence.  "  In  this  sense,"  he  says, 
"  which  leaves  perfect  freedom  to  history,  we 
also  could  accept  the  idea  of  a  primitive  revela- 
tion/'1 

We  find,  then,  the  origin  of  religion  in  these 
two  factors :  the  one,  subjective,  the  other, 
objective ;  the  former,  the  constitution  of  man's 
nature,  in  virtue  of  which  he  necessarily  be- 
lieves in  the  existence  of  a  Power  invisible 
and  supernatural,  to  which  he  stands  necessarily 
related ;  the  latter,  in  the  actual  revelation  of 
such  a  Power  in  the  phenomena  of  conscience, 
and  in  the  physical  universe  without  us. 

1  ''Prolegomena,"  etc.,  p.  36. 


LECTURE   VI. 

THE   DEVELOPMENT  OF  RELIGION:   SIN  AS  A   FACTOR. 

THE  history  of  religion  undoubtedly  presents 
us  with  an  evolution,  as  the  popular  modern 
phrase  is.  Religions  have  not  arisen  suddenly 
and  independently  of  what  had  gone  before. 
It  is  true  of  religious  history,  as  of  all  history, 
that  the  roots  of  the  present  are  in  the  past, 
as  those  of  each  past,  in  a  yet  earlier  past. 
In  many  instances,  we  are  able  to  trace  the 
genesis  of  a  religion  out  of  a  preceding  religion, 
historically;  as  in  the  rise  of  Buddhism  out 
of  the  earlier  Brahmanism,  or  of  Muhammedan- 
ism  out  of  Christianity  and  Judaism.  Nor  is 
Christianity  an  exception  to  this  law.  Though 
it  was,  in  one  sense,  a  new  religion,  supernatu- 
rally  introduced  through  the  incarnation,  life, 
death,  and  resurrection,  of  the  Son  of  God,  it 
was  yet  so  related  to  the  antecedent  Judaism  as 
without  it  to  have  been  impossible.  The  affir- 
182 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        183 

mation  of  a  supernatural  factor  in  Judaism  or 
Christianity  in  no  wise  requires  us  to  ignore 
or  deny  the  co-operation  of  natural  causes  also, 
in  their  origination  and  development,  any  more 
than  the  recognition  of  the  natural  causes 
involves,  as  some  seem  to  suppose,  the  denial 
of  the  supernatural  factor. 

Again,  in  every  religion,  when  it  has  been 
once  established,  we  observe  a  progressive 
development.  No  religion  has  ever  remained, 
in  the  apprehension  and  practice  of  those  who 
profess  it,  exactly  what  it  was  in  its  beginning. 
Religions  are  modified  as  the  years  and  cen- 
turies go  by,  whether  in  the  way  of  elevation 
and  progress,  or,  on  the  other  hand,  of  regress 
and  degradation.  It  takes  little  careful  reading 
to  discover  in  the  Christian  Scriptures,  histori- 
cally regarded,  a  very  manifest  progress  in  the 
development  of  doctrine.  Only  a  school  of 
interpretation,  now  about  extinct,  will  seek  to 
discover  everything  in  Genesis  which  appears 
in  the  Gospels  or  Apocalypse.  The  theology  of 
Genesis  is  very  simple  and  elementary,  as  com- 
pared even  with  that  of  the  prophets ;  and 


184      GENESIS   AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

when  it  is  compared  with  any  of  the  New 
Testament  books,  the  contrast  is  still  more 
obvious. 

This  fact  is  now  so  commonly  recognised 
by  intelligent  Christians,  that  it  might  seem 
superfluous  to  remark  it,  except  that  many  of 
the  chief  authorities  who  have  written  of  late 
years  on  the  history  of  religion,  have  so  unac- 
countably misapprehended,  and  hence  misrep- 
resented, the  belief  of  intelligent  evangelical 
Christians  on  this  point ;  assuming  that  because 
such  maintain  that  man  began  his  history 
with  a  true  knowledge  of  the  one  living  God, 
they  also  have  intended  therein  to  affirm  that 
the  first  men  enjoyed  a  full  knowledge  of  all 
those  truths  which  are  now  the  possession  of 
the  church. 

A  striking  illustration  of  this  is  found  in 
Seville's  "  Prolegomena  to  a  History  of  Relig- 
ion," in  which  the  learned  author,  contending 
against  the  Christian  doctrine  of  a  primeval 
supernatural  revelation,  urges  that  "it  is  infi- 
nitely hard  to  imagine  that  in  the  beginning 
of  his  slow  and  painful  development,  man,  yet 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        185 

plunged  in  absolute  ignorance,  was  in  possession 
of  sublime  religious  doctrines,  such  as  the  most 
pure  inspiration  has  been  able  to  offer  to  a 
cultivated  society,  rich  in  accumulated  experi- 
ence." From  which  he  concludes  that  "  the 
hypothesis  of  a  primeval  revelation  of  religious 
truth  is  in  contradiction  to  all  that  we  know 
as  to  the  extremely  miserable  and  uncultured 
state  of  humanity  anterior  to  history."1  To 
which  argument  it  is  sufficient  to  say  in  reply, 
that  no  intelligent  Christian  holds  any  such 
extravagant  belief  as  to  the  degree  of  knowl- 
edge of  God  which  was  possessed  by  our  first 
parents  as  Reville  supposes ;  nor  does  the  record 
in  Genesis,  which  such  accept  as  authoritative, 
so  represent  their  condition. 

In  view  of  modern  controversies,  it  is,  how- 
ever, important  to  emphasise  the  remark  that 
it  does  not  follow  that  because  the  religious 
beliefs  of  the  first  men  were  few  and  elemen- 
tary, therefore  they  must  have  been  erroneous. 
It  does  not  follow  from  this  admission,  that 
before  man  could  have  attained  a  knowledge 

1  "Prolegomena,"  etc.,  p.  40. 


186      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

of  the  one  true  God,  he  must  have  been  a  wor- 
shipper of  nature,  or  of  fetishes,  or  of  shadows 
or  ghosts.  As  in  all  other  matters  of  human 
knowledge,  so  in  religion,  it  is  quite  possible 
that  although  a  man  may  know  very  little, 
he  may  know  that  little  very  accurately. 

We  may  then  at  once  admit,  subject  only 
to  these  necessary  explanations,  that  in  every 
religion  is  to  be  observed  a  growth  or  devel- 
opment. And  so  the  question  arises,  What 
has  been  the  usual  order  of  that  development  ? 
Admitting  that  man  is  religious  in  virtue  of 
the  constitution  of  his  nature,  so  that  from 
the  first  he  must  have  had  some  religious  belief ; 
admitting,  moreover,  that  the  primitive  religious 
belief  must  have  been  most  simple  and  elemen- 
tary, what  was  the  character  of  that  original 
faith  of  men  ?  Was  it  monotheism,  or  was  it 
something  else  ?  some  form  of  polytheism,  dual- 
ism, nature-worship,  fetish  or  spirit-worship  ? 
Of  these,  which  is  primary,  and  which  are 
secondary  ? 

*  Professor  Max  Miiller,  indeed,  as  also  Reville, 
strangely   insists    that   this    is    "an    idle    ques- 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        187 

tion." *  The  latter  tells  us  that  primitive  human- 
ity was  "  incapable  of  making  any  such  distinc- 
tion." 2  But  such  an  assertion,  even  if  true, 
cannot  be  proved,  till  some  one  shall  have  pro- 
duced some  decisive  evidence  that  the  first  man 
was  such  a  semi-bestial  being  as  it  assumes  him 
to  have  been.  For  to  say  that  primeval  man 
was  not  capable  of  knowing  whether  he  wor- 
shipped one  God,  or  more  than  one,  is  to  place 
him  lower  in  the  scale  of  intelligence  than 
many  brutes.  It  is  said  to  have  been  shown 
by  a  curious  experiment,  that  even  the  crow 
can  count  up  to  three.  A  creature,  even  though 
having  the  bodily  form  of  an  adult  man,  who 
could  not  distinguish  between  one  and  two, 
either  would  not  be  a  man ;  or,  if  a  man,  an 
idiot.  But  all  the  evidence  shows  that  the 
earliest  men  whose  remains  have  been  dis- 
covered were  as  far  from  being  such  idiots 
as  we  are.  The  so-called  "  Calaveras  skull," 
for  instance,  according  to  the  eminent  geolo- 
gist, Professor  Wright,  "is  in  no  sense  ape- 

1  "  Chips  from  a  German  Workshop,"  vol.  i,  pp.  27,  28. 

2  "Prolegomena,"  etc.,  p.  61. 


188      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

like  in  character,  but  may  well  have  contained 
the  brain  of  a  philosopher."1 

It  is  not  therefore  "an  idle  question"  whether 
or  not  monotheism  is  primitive.  We  cannot 
fairly  decline  to  face  the  question :  Was  mono- 
theism the  starting-point,  or  must  we  regard  it 
as  the  goal  of  the  religious  development  of  man  ? 
Are  henotheism,  polytheism,  etc..,  to  be  regarded 
as  successive  stadia  in  the  progress  of  man 
toward  the  recognition  of  one  personal  God  and 
Father  in  Heaven  ?  or,  on  the  contrary,  do  these 
mark  successive  stages  of  departure  and  de- 
cline from  a  pure  primitive  faith  in  one  personal 
God? 

Reville  asserts  the  former  alternative,  declar- 
ing dogmatically  that  "  we  cannot  deny  the 
original  polytheism";2  and  with  him  substan- 
tially agree  the  whole  school  of  naturalistic  evo- 
lutionists. But  this  denial  of  an  original  mon- 
otheism, as  before  remarked,  proceeds  from  the 
assumption  that  man  was  developed  by  slow  and 

1  "Bibliotheca  Sacra,"  April,  1891,  article,  Recent  Discoveries 
bearing  on  the  Antiquity  of  Man. 

2  "Prolegomena,"  etc.,  p.  61. 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        189 

insensible  degrees  from  the  condition  of  an 
irrational  brute ;  a  theory  which  such  an  un- 
prejudiced scientist  as  Virchow  declares  to  be 
not  yet  established,  and  which  Alfred  Russell 
Wallace  even  declares  to  be  irreconcilable  with 
certain  indisputable  facts.  Whether,  apart 
from  the  argument  derived  from  this  mistaken 
assumption,  there  is  independent  evidence  for 
the  gradual  evolution  of  monotheism,  we  shall 
see  in  the  sequel. 

The  question  of  the  nature  of  the  religion  of 
the  primitive  man  is  one  which  cannot  be  his- 
torically determined  by  direct  testimony.  We 
can  only  arrive  at  a  decision  of  this  question 
by  way  of  inference  from  facts  at  present  known. 
But  such  a  method  is  capable  of  at  least  con- 
ducting us  to  a  conclusion  which  shall  have  a 
high  degree  of  probability.  If,  in  historical 
investigation,  the  further  back  we  go,  the  more, 
as  a  general  rule,  we  find  monotheism  disappear- 
ing, and  the  lower  forms  of  religious  faith,  such 
as  the  worship  of  fetishes,  of  ancestors,  or  of 
nature,  becoming  more  and  more  prominent, 
then  certainly  such  facts  would  tend  to  show 


190      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

that  the  opinion  of  those  who  maintain  that 
monotheism  could  not  have  been  the  original 
form  of  religion,  was  probably  correct.  But 
if,  on  the  contrary,  in  those  cases  in  which  we 
can  trace  the  history  of  religion,  we  either  find 
a  monotheistic  faith  more  and  more  prominent, 
the  more  remote  the  antiquity  to  which  we 
ascend ;  or  if,  again,  in  the  case  of  other  races, 
although  the  earliest  records  reveal  no  trace  of 
monotheistic  belief,  we  yet  find,  as  the  centuries 
roll  by,  no  tendency  to  develop  it,  then  certainly 
we  shall  rightly  assume  that  monotheism  is, 
far  more  probably,  the  earliest  form  of  religious 
belief,  of  which  all  others  are  more  or  less  ex- 
treme degenerations.  For  it  is  clearly  in  the 
last  degree  unlikely  that  the  direction  of 
development  in  prehistoric  times  should  have 
been  the  reverse  of  that  exhibited  in  the 
historic  period  ;  and  we  may  with  full  confidence 
argue  from  any  law  revealed  as  operating  in 
the  latter,  to  the  existence  of  the  same  law  in 
the  former  period.  That  the  facts  sustain  the 
latter  of  the  two  alternatives  supposed,  we  shall 
see  abundant  reason  to  believe. 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        191 

Inasmuch  as  in  this  inquiry  we  have  no 
historic  records  which  bring  us  within  thousands 
of  years  of  the  beginning  of  human  life,  it  is 
evident  that  the  question  of  the  antecedent 
probability  becomes  of  more  than  ordinary 
importance  and  argumentative  value.  The 
whole  naturalistic  school, of  evolutionist  writers 
on  religion  are  wont  to  assume  that  the  antece- 
dent probability  is  decisive  against  the  possi- 
bility of  an  original  monotheism ;  and  if  their 
naturalistic  theories  as  to  the  origin  of  man  be 
granted,  in  this  they  are  certainly  right.  For 
if  man  was  evolved  out  of  the  brute  in  such  a 
-purely  natural  and  gradual  manner  as  they 
assume,  it  would  plainly  be  most  difficult  to 
indicate  the  precise  point  in  his  ascent  where 
this  developing  creature  became  a  man,  and  an 
original  monotheism  would  be  almost  incon- 
ceivable. But  for  reasons  already  fully  given, 
we  cannot  admit  the  right  to  take  this  assump- 
tion for  granted,  or  allow  that  upon  the  dis- 
puted hypothesis  of  a  purely  naturalistic 
evolution,  any  argument  as  to  the  nature  of 
man's  earliest  religion,  or  as  to  the  order  of 
religious  development,  can  rightly  be  based. 


192      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Not  only  so,  but  we  affirm  that  the  phenomena 
connected  with  man's  consciousness  of  sin  are 
such  as  to  establish  a  weighty  probability  in 
favour  of  the  opposite  view ;  namely,  that 
monotheism  must  be  presumed  to  have  been 
the  original  type  of  religious  belief,  of  which 
all  others  must  be  regarded  as  variously  de- 
graded forms. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  character- 
istics of  modern  naturalistic  theories  of  the 
development  of  religion,  that,  for  the  most  part, 
they  ignore  this  universal  consciousness  of  sin, 
and  quietly  assume  that  religious  development 
has  progressed  under  normal  conditions,  and 
thus  also  must  have  been  marked,  on  the  whole, 
by  a  progressive  elevation  and  continuous  im- 
provement of  man's  religious  ideas.  But  this 
common  assumption  is  in  contradiction  to  most 
manifest  and  indisputable  facts.  Conscience  in 
all  ages  has  steadily  witnessed  that  man's  moral 
relation  to  the  Power  with  whom  in  religion 
he  has  to  do,  is  not  what  it  should  be.  All 
religions  agree  in  taking  it  for  granted  that  in 
this  relation  there  is  something  abnormal, 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        193 

which,  somehow,  through  religion,  needs,  if 
possible,  to  be  set  right.  In  a  word,  they 
testify,  always  and  everywhere,  that  man  feels 
himself  to  be  a  sinner,  and,  because  of  this,  out 
of  harmony  with  the  Power  which  rules  the 
universe.  About  this  fact  there  is  no  room  for 
debate.  One  may,  if  he  will,  regard  this  uni- 
versal feeling  as  a  groundless  superstition.  But 
such  an  individual  opinion  cannot  remove  the 
fact  that,  as  a  rule,  the  great  mass  of  men,  and 
the  noblest,  purest  natures  and  deepest  thinkers, 
most  of  all,  have  sadly  recognised  a  moral  dis- 
harmony between  themselves  and  that  mysteri- 
ous Power  which  conscience  discerns  in  nature. 

The  truth  of  this  general  statement  is  not 
affected,  nor  its  significance  in  the  present 
argument  lessened,  because  in  some  individ- 
uals this  consciousness  of  sin  appears  to  be 
extinct.  For  it  is  one  of  the  most  constantly 
observed  effects  of  continued  sin,  that  it  tends 
to  produce  a  certain  numbness  and  deadness 
of  the  moral  sense.  The  only  wonder  is  that 
individuals  who  have  no  sense  of  sin,  are  not 
more  common  than  they  are. 
o 


194      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Neither  is  the  bearing  of  this  fact  on  the 
question  before  us  affected  by  the  circumstance 
that  very  great  differences  of  belief  are  found 
among  men,  as  to  what  specific  acts  or  feelings 
are  to  be  regarded  as  sin.  For  this  difference 
only  concerns  the  question  as  to  what  are 
those  particular  moral  acts  or  states,  because 
of  which  the  disharmony  between  man 
and  the  Unseen  Power  exists.  All  alike, 
however  they  may  differ  on  this  point,  assume 
the  fact  that  the  disharmony  exists. 

Now  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  this 
consciousness  of  sin  and  guilt  has  been  one 
of  the  most  potent  factors  in  the  development 
of  religion.  Practically,  the  religions  of  the 
world  have  addressed  themselves  chiefly  to 
the  problems  presented  by  the  fact  of  sin, 
and  the  pain  and  sorrow  which  is  commonly 
perceived  to  be  a  consequence  of  sin.  Hence, 
to  write  a  history,  or  elaborate  a  theory,  of 
the  development  of  religion,  and  either 
ignore  the  phenomena  presented  in  the 
consciousness  of  sin,  or  assign  them  an 
influence  subordinate  and  insignificant,  thus 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        195 

assuming  that  the  development  of  religion 
has  been  essentially  normal,  is  utterly  unsci- 
entific. Such  an  assumption  can  only  lead 
to  a  misreading  of  facts,  and,  in  consequence, 
to  erroneous  conclusions.  He  who  makes 
such  an  assumption,  and  interprets  facts 
accordingly,  commits  an  error  no  less  fatal 
to  any  correct  result  than  that  of  the  student 
who  should  attempt  to  construct  a  theory 
of  physiology,  solely  from  data  presented  by 
diseased  persons,  mistakenly  supposed  by  him 
to  be  sound  and  well. 

And  yet  a  no  less  eminent  specialist  in 
this  subject  than  M.  Reville,  introduces 
into  the  foundation  of  his  argument  this 
very  assumption  ;  representing  it  as  incon- 
ceivable that  the  history  of  the  develop- 
ment of  religion  should  be  "nothing  more 
than  an  exposition  of  the  degradation  and 
corruption  of  moral  truth."  What  is  this 
but  to  assume  that  man,  who  is  everywhere 
presented  to  our  observation  as  morally  sick, 
is  morally  well  ?  Incredible,  indeed,  such  a 

1  "Prolegomena,"  etc.,  p.  35. 


196       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

record  of  a  continual  tendency  to  the  degrada- 
tion of  religion  would  appear,  if  man's  moral 
condition  were  normal ;  but  how,  if  it  be 
abnormal  ?  What  shall  we  say,  if  we  regard 
the  testimony  of  conscience,  that  man  is 
suffering  universally  from  a  profound  consti- 
tutional disorder  of  his  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  ?  If  this  be  true,  then  is  it  not  rather 
inconceivable  that  the  history  of  religion 
should  not  bear  witness  to  a  no  less  universal 
tendency  to  moral  and  spiritual  degradation 
and  corruption  ? 

For  it  is  undeniable  that  sin  universally 
and  constantly  tends  to  modify  a  man's 
religious  beliefs  and  feelings  for  the  worse. 
It  ever  tends  to  dull  to  the  consciousness,  the 
voice  of  conscience,  which  affirms  a  moral 
law,  and  therewith  a  personal  Lawgiver,  not 
many,  but  One  and  Supreme. 

Sin  also  begets  fear,  and  the  more  that  the 
consciousness  of  sin  is  developed,  ever  more  and 
more  fear.  Sin  also  is  ever  manifested  in  desire 
for  that  which  the  fleshly  lower  nature  of  man 
craves,  but  the  moral  law  condemns.  How 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        197 

natural,  then,  how  inevitable,  indeed,  that  sin 
should  powerfully  influence  the  development 
of  religion  ;  as  inclining  men  always  to  wrong 
views  of  the  nature  and  character  of  God  !  How 
natural  that  we  should  see  —  as  we  do  see  —  many 
religions  which  express  little  else  than  the  con- 
sciousness of  fear  and  dread ;  dread  of  a  great 
God,  or  gods,  on  high,  or  of  malign  unseen 
powers  resident  in  nature  !  How  evident,  again, 
that,  because  the  consciousness  of  sin  awakens 
fear  of  retribution  from  the  unseen  Power 
against  whom  man  has  sinned,  therefore,  inas- 
much as  fear  is  painful,  men  will  be  unfailingly 
predisposed  to  look  with  favour  upon  such  views 
of  God,  or  of  the  world,  or  of  both,  as,  if  as- 
sumed to  be  true,  diminish  or  remove  the 
ground  for  fear  !  How  natural  thus  that  men 
should  ever  be  inclined  to  imagine  gods  like 
unto  themselves,  who  therefore,  as  themselves 
unholy,  are  not  greatly  displeased  with  the  sin- 
fulness  of  man ! 

Hence  we  find  many  ready  to  accept  an  athe- 
istic or  agnostic  system,  like  the  early  Bud- 
dhism or  Chinese  Confucianism ;  many  more 


198       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

accepting  pantheism,  as  in  ancient  Egypt, 
Babylon,  and,  above  all,  in  India,  ancient  and 
modern.  For  in  the  former  case,  if  a  man  can 
accept  an  atheistic  or  an  agnostic  creed,  he 
practically  rids  himself  of  the  oppressive  belief 
in  an  almighty  Being,  personal  and  holy,  and 
therefore  to  be  feared  by  a  sinner.  In  the  case 
of  pantheism,  the  same  stupefaction  of  the 
warning  conscience  is  secured,  both  logically 
and  historically,  in  the  highest  degree.  For 
in  ascribing  all  human  acts,  in  the  same  sense, 
to  God,  pantheism  denies  His  absolute  holiness, 
as  in  eternal  antagonism  to  man's  sin;  reduc- 
ing sin  to  a  necessary,  but  transient,  moment 
in  the  evolutionary  process  of  the  one  only 
Being ;  and  by  denying  free-agency,  and  by 
affirming  necessity  as  the  law  of  human  life, 
it  consistently  shows  that  no  man  is  responsible 
for  his  wrong  doing ;  a  doctrine  which  is  re- 
peatedly affirmed  as  dogma  in  the  sacred  books 
of  India.  Remembering  these  things,  it  is  easy 
to  understand  why  pantheism  should  have  been 
accepted  by  such  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  human  family  as  the  essential  truth  of 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        199 

religion.  Pantheism  is  to  the  pangs  of  con- 
science what  morphine  is  to  aching  nerves. 

Polytheistic  religions  —  often  based,  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  on  pantheistic  as- 
sumptions —  have  the  same  effect  of  dulling 
the  sense  of  sin.  They  do  this  by  lowering  the 
character  of  God,  through  representing  Him  by 
unworthy  symbols  ;  so  that  as  the  symbolism  be- 
comes progressively  more  and  more  degraded, 
the  moral  antagonism  between  man  and  God  is 
more  and  more  obscured  to  consciousness. 

Finally,  sin  ever  tends  to  affect  for  evil  the 
religious  development  of  man,  because  it  lies 
in  the  nature  of  sin,  that  it  tends  to  the  de- 
basement of  moral  ideals,  and  so  makes  it  ever 
more  and  more  easy  for  man  to  imagine  a  god 
like  unto  himself. 

To  all  this  it  is  indeed  sometimes  replied, 
that,  even  granting  these  facts  as  to  man's 
present  sinful  condition,  and  also  that  sin  must 
modify  the  religious  development,  it  might 
nevertheless  be  true  that  man  naturally  tends, 
as  the  ages  pass,  to  grow  morally  better;  so 
that  a  progressive  elevation  of  man's  religious 


200      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

conceptions,  in  the  way  of  a  merely  natural 
development,  might  still  be  quite  possible. 
Upon  this  assumption,  sin  would  be  like  certain 
bodily  diseases,  which  run  a  definite  and  self- 
limited  course,  and  which  naturally  tend  to  the 
re-establishment  of  health. 

But  however  pleasing  such  a  belief  would 
be,  the  facts  of  history  forbid  us  to  take  this 
optimistic  view.  As  regards  the  individual, 
there  is  nothing  clearer  than  the  fact  that  the 
natural  tendency  of  a  sinner  is  not  toward 
moral  and  spiritual  improvement,  but  the 
reverse.  Every  man  who  really  struggles  in 
earnest  against  sin,  just  in  proportion  to  the 
strength  of  the  determination  of  his  will 
against  it,  finds  that  the  tendency  of  his  nature 
is  ever  against  him.  But  if  this  be  true  of 
every  individual,  how  can  it  but  be  true  of  the 
whole  race,  which  is  made  up  exclusively  of 
such  individuals  ? 

And  that  indeed  it  is  so  with  the  race,  all 
history  bears  accordant  witness.  Not  only  has 
the  natural  tendency  been  downward  and  not 
upward,  outside  of  the  influence  of  Judaism  and 


SIN    AND    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.        201 

Christianity,  but  even  Jewish  and  Christian 
history  furnishes  many  humiliating  illustrations 
of  this  law  of  tendency  to  moral  depravation. 

If,  now,  this  be  a  correct  account  of  the  chief 
phenomena  presented  in  the  universal  conscious- 
ness of  sin,  it  is  easy  to  see  on  which  side  the 
presumption  must  lie,  as  regards  the  order  of 
religious  development.  That  man  should  have 
begun  with  some  low  and  erroneous  form  of 
religious  belief,  and  then,  being  the  sinner  that 
he  is,  through  a  merely  natural  development, 
and  apart  from  any  supernatural  grace,  should 
have  gradually  approximated,  or  at  last  attained 
to,  the  purity  of  monotheistic  faith,  as  repre- 
sented in  Judaism  or  Christianity,  appears  in 
this  light  to  be  nothing  less  than  a  wholly 
incredible  hypothesis.  A  presumption  of  over- 
whelming force  is  therefore  established  that  the 
natural  order  of  the  development  of  religion 
cannot  have  been  from  animism,  fetishism, 
nature  or  ancestor  worship,  upwards,  toward 
the  recognition  and  worship  of  the  one  living 
and  true  God;  but  that  instead,  the  religious 
movement,  on  lines  of  nature,  must  have  been 


202       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

from  an  original  monotheism,  downwards,  along 
various  lines  of  progressive  debasement  of  the 
idea  of  God  and  of  man's  relation  to  Him. 
Whether  the  facts  of  history,  so  far  as  ascer- 
tainable,  are  such  as  this  presumption  would 
lead  us  to  anticipate,  we  have  to  inquire  in  the 
next  lecture. 


LECTURE   VII. 

HISTORIC   FACTS   REGARDING   THE    ORDER    OF 
RELIGIOUS   DEVELOPMENT. 

IN  the  previous  lecture  it  was  shown  that  the 
phenomena  which  are  exhibited  in  connection 
with  man's  consciousness  of  sin,  are  such  as  to 
establish  the  strongest  possible  presumption 
against  the  probability  of  a  gradual  improve- 
ment and  elevation  of  religion  through  any 
forces  resident  in  humanity ;  so  that  it  is  in 
the  last  degree  unlikely  that  the  order  of  relig- 
ious development  should  have  been  from  an 
original  and  primitive  worship  of  spirits,  or  of 
fetishes,  or  of  nature,  upwards,  toward  monothe- 
ism, and  not  rather  the  reverse.  We  have  next 
to  inquire  whether  or  not  historical  facts,  so 
far  as  known,  are  such  as  to  sustain  this  pre- 
sumption, and  so  support  the  hypothesis  that 
the  original  form  of  religious  faith  must  have 

been  monotheistic. 

203 


204      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

We  may  well  begin  the  inquiry  with  the 
order  of  development  in  ancient  Egypt.  The 
beginnings  of  Egyptian  history  are  still  veiled 
in  mystery,  but  we  shall  doubtless  be  safe  if 
we  assume  that  the  first  dynasty  of  the  Egyp- 
tian monarchy  cannot  be  placed  at  a  date  more 
recent  than  about  3400  B.C.  ;  not  forgetting 
that  some  eminent  scholars  insist  on  a  date 
one  or  two  thousand  years  earlier.1  On  the 
assumption  of  3400  B.C.  as  the  lowest  possible 
date,  we  then  have  a  literature  covering  a  mini- 
mum period  of  about  three  thousand  years, 
ending  with  the  early  Christian  centuries.  The 
time  is  certainly  sufficiently  long  to  enable  us  to 
judge  of  the  general  religious  tendency  of  the 
people ;  and  as,  fortunately,  the  literature  and 
other  monuments  of  Egypt  are  not  only  very 
abundant,  but  have  much  to  say  regarding 

1  Renouf  says:  "The  date  of  the  Great  Pyramid  cannot  be 
more  recent  than  3000  B.C."  But  this  is  not  yet  the  beginning  of 
the  long  series  of  Egyptian  dynasties  ;  and  there  appears  also  to  be 
sufficient  evidence  that  man  existed  in  the  Nile  valley  long  before 
the  first  dynasty.  See  "The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion  as 
illustrated  by  the  Religion  of  Ancient  Egypt,"  by  M.  Le  Page 
Renouf  (Hibbert  Lectures  for  1879),  p.  50. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       205 

religious  matters,  the  data  for  forming  an  intel- 
ligent judgment  are  all  that  we  could  ask. 

From  this  literature  it  appears  that  both 
monotheism  and  polytheism  coexisted  in  Egypt 
from  the  time  of  the  earliest  records.  Illustra- 
tions of  the  latter  need  not  be  adduced.  Every 
one  is  familiar  with  the  gross  idolatry  of 
ancient  Egypt,  their  worship  of  sacred  bulls, 
and  cats,  and  crocodiles  \  of  leeks  and  onions ; 
of  sun,  and  moon,  and  stars.  But  those  who 
have  not  looked  into  the  matter  may  well  be 
surprised  to  find  also  in  this  literature,  declara- 
tions of  the  moral  character  of  God,  as  the 
sole,  supreme  Ruler  of  heaven  and  earth,  which 
in  many  instances  might  be  used  without 
modification  to  express  the  belief  of  the  Chris- 
tian. 

Thus  in  the  "  Maxims  of  Ptahhotep,"  the 
most  ancient  book  in  the  world,  dating  from 
the  time  of  the  pyramid-builders,  we  find  such 
passages  as  these  :  — 

"If  any  one  beareth  himself  proudly,  he 
will  be  humbled  by  God,  who  maketh  his 
strength." 


206       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    KELIGION. 

"  If  thou  art  a  wise  man,  bring  up  thy  son 
in  the  love  of  God." 

"  God  loveth  the  obedient,  and  hateth  the 
disobedient."1 

In  the  Maxims  of  Ani  we  read  :  — 

"  Pray  humbly  with  a  loving  heart,  all  the 
words  of  which  are  uttered  in  secret:  He  (God) 
will  protect  thee  in  thy  affairs;  He  will  listen 
to  thy  words." 

"  Give  thyself  to  God ;  keep  thyself  con- 
tinually for  God,  and  let  to-morrow  be  like 
to-day.  Let  thine  eyes  consider  the  acts  of 
God ;  it  is  He  who  smiteth  him  that  is  smit- 
ten." 2 

This  "  God "  of  whom  Ptahhotep  and  Ani 
speak,  is  described  even  as  in  the  Chris- 
tian Scriptures,  as  "  the  great  God,  Lord  of 
heaven  and  of  earth,  who  made  all  things 
which  are."3  And  to  this  God  the  prayer  is 
offered :  — 

"  0  my  God  and  Lord,  who  hast  made  me, 

1  Quoted  by  Renouf,  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  etc., 
pp.  100,  101. 

2  Ib.  pp.  102,  103.  3  Ib.  p.  216. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       207 

and  formed  me,  give  me  an  eye  to  see  and  an 
ear  to  hear  thy  glories." 

Such  expressions,  which  are  exceedingly 
numerous,  amply  justify  the  strong  language 
of  Rouge,  quoted  by  Renouf :  "  The  first  charac- 
teristic of  the  (Egyptian)  religion  is  the  unity 
(of  God)  most  energetically  expressed;  God, 
one,  sole,  and  only  ;  no  others  with  Him.  .  .  . 
He  has  made  everything,  and  He  alone  has 
not  been  made." 2 

This  understanding  of  these  ancient  testi- 
monies concerning  the  religion  of  ancient  Egypt 
is  sustained  by  Renouf,  who,  commenting  on 
some  of  the  above-cited  texts,  uses  these 
words :  — 

"  There  can,  I  trust,  be  no  doubt,  who  that 
power  is  which,  in  our  translations,  we  do  not 
hesitate  to  call  God.  It  is  unquestionably  the 
true  and  only  God,  who  is  not  far  from  any 
of  us ;  for  in  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have 
our  being ;  whose  4  eternal  power  and  godhead  ' 
and  government  of  the  world  were  made 

1  Quoted  by  Renouf,  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  etc., 
p.  216.  2  Ib>  p.  89. 


208      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

known  through  that  Light  which  enlighteneth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world."1 

The  writings  of  ancient  Egypt  thus  witness 
not  only  to  the  existence  of  polytheism  in 
ancient  Egypt,  but,  no  less  clearly,  to  the  coex- 
istence with  it  of  a  high  type  of  monotheistic 
belief.  Now  the  question  vital  to  the  present 
argument  is  evidently  this  :  What,  according  to 
these  ancient  authorities,  is  the  relation  of  time 
and  succession  in  which  the  Egyptian  mono- 
theism and  polytheism  stand  to  each  other  ? 
According  to  any  evolutionary  theory  of  relig- 
ion, we  ought  to  find  the  nature- worship  in 
its  various  forms,  most  prominent  in  the  earliest 
literature ;  and  then,  coming  down  the  centuries, 
we  should  be  able  to  observe  a  gradual  evolu- 
tion of  monotheism  out  of  that  earlier  faith. 
Is  this,  in  fact,  what  we  do  find  ?  Let  us  again 
hear  one  of  the  high  authorities  already  cited. 
Referring  to  the  monotheistic  element  in  Egyp- 
tian literature,  Renouf  says  :  — 

"  It  is  incontestably  true  that  the  sublimer 

1  Quoted  by  Renouf,  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  etc., 
p.  103. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       209 

portions  of  the  Egyptian  religion  are  not  the 
comparatively  late  result  of  a  process  of  devel- 
opment, of  elimination  from  the  grosser.  The 
sublimer  portions  are  demonstrably  ancient ; 
and  the  last  stage  of  the  Egyptian  religion  .  .  . 
was  by  far  the  grossest  and  most  corrupt."  1 

Rouge*,  whom  Renouf  quotes,  agrees  with 
him  in  asserting  this  same  order  as  historical 
fact.  He  says  :  — 

"  More  than  five  thousand  years  since,  in 
the  valley  of  the  Nile,  the  hymn  began  to  the 
Unity  of  God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul, 
and  we  find  Egypt  in  the  last  ages  arrived  at 
the  most  unbridled  polytheism.  The  belief  in 
the  Unity  of  the  Supreme  God  and  in  His 
attributes  as  Creator  and  Law-giver  of  man, 
.  .  .  these  are  the  primitive  notions,  encased 
like  indestructible  diamonds  in  the  midst  of 
the  mythological  superfetations  accumulated 
in  the  centuries  which  have  passed  over  that 
ancient  civilisation." 2 

The   facts   thus   show  that  the  order  of  the 

1  "  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  etc.,  p.  91.  See  also 
p.  249.  2  Quoted  ib.,  p.  91. 


P 


210      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

development  of  religion  in  Egypt  was  the  exact 
opposite  of  that  which  any  evolutionary  theory 
of  religion  would  require ;  but  in  perfect  accord 
with  the  presumption  established  in  the  pre- 
vious lecture,  on  the  ground  of  the  observed 
phenomena  connected  with  man's  consciousness 
of  sin.  The  order  of  the  Egyptian  development 
was  not  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  forms  of 
religious  belief,  but  the  reverse.  It  is  the  most 
ancient  Egyptian  literature  which  exhibits  the 
noblest  and  purest  faith.  In  that  of  the  earlier 
dynasties  we  find  the  doctrines  of  the  unity,  per- 
sonality, and  spirituality  of  God,  as  the  Creator 
of  the  world,  "strenuously  asserted";  although 
with  this  we  also  may  observe  manifestations 
of  a  tendency  to  religious  debasement.  The 
powers  of  nature  were  already  worshipped; 
but  in  that  early  day  they  appear  to  have  been 
regarded  merely  as  the  diverse  manifestations 
of  the  one  Nutar,  or  Power,  from  whom  all 
powers  proceed.  But  by  the  19th  dynasty, 
or  about  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  the  conception 
of  the  personality  of  God,  as  above  and  tran- 
scending the  world  He  had  created,  had  largely 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       211 

given  place  to  a  pantheistic  view  of  God's 
relation  to  the  world,  which  then  led  rapidly 
on,  as  always,  to  the  development  of  a  system 
of  nature-worship,  and  that  of  a  very  gross 
kind ;  as  of  cats,  and  bulls,  and  crocodiles, 
and  beetles,  the  ultimate  and  most  degraded 
stage  .  of  the  Egyptian  religion,  as  it  was 
chiefly  known  to  the  Greek  writers,  and,  still 
later,  to  the  early  Christian  fathers. 

Similar  was  the  order  of  development  in  the 
religion  of  India.  The  most  ancient  deity, 
probably,  of  the  Indo-Aryans,  was  Dyaus, 
called  more  specifically  Dyauspitar,  lit.  Heaven- 
Father,  the  original  form,  as  is  well  known, 
of  the  Latin  Jupiter,  as  is  Dyaus  of  the  Greek 
Zeus,  all  denoting  the  Supreme  God.  But 
already  in  the  earliest  Yedic  days,  according 
to  Professor  Max  Miiller,  Dyaus  pitar  had 
become  "  a  fading  star,"  and  other  deities  were 
coming  above  the  horizon,  such  Aditi,  "the 
Infinite  Expanse";  Varuna,  "the  Star-lit  sky"; 
Mithra,  "the  god  of  day,"  etc.  As  time  passed 
on,  the  number  of  deities  was  multiplied  more 
and  more  ;  still,  however,  for  the  most  part. 


212       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

representing  natural  phenomena.  Such  were 
Indra,  the  god  of  rain ;  Vayu,  the  god  of  wind ; 
the  Maruts,  or  gods  of  the  storm;  Surya,  the 
Sun-god ;  Ushas,  the  goddess  of  the  dawn ;  and 
especially  Agni,  the  god  of  fire,  etc. 

But  in  that  earliest  form  of  the  Indo- Aryan 
religion,  each  of  these  chief  deities  is  addressed 
as  if  it  were  the  one  only  Supreme  Being; 
precisely  as  in  old  time  were  Osiris,  Ra,  and 
other  gods  of  Egypt.  Thus  Agni  is  said  to 
be  "  the  Lawgiver  of  the  Universe ";  Indra 
is  declared  to  be  "  higher  than  all ";  Agni, 
Surya,  Indra,  and  Vishnu,  are,  each  alike, 
styled  "  king  of  all  gods  and  men "; 1  the 
phase  of  religion  which  Max  Miiller  has  called 
henotheism ;  and  the  explanation  of  which 
according  to  the  Rig  Veda,  i,  164,  is  found 
in  the  fact  that  these  are  all  regarded  as 
simply  various  manifestations  of  one  Divine 
Being.  "  They  call  him  Indra,  Mithra,  Va- 
runa,  Agni,  —  that  which  is  One,  the  wise 
name  by  different  terms." 

Such     is     the     form      of      religion     which 

Ebrard,  "  Apologetik,"  2  Bd.  §  15. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.      213 

meets  us  in  the  earliest  Yedic  period.  In 
name,  many  gods  appear,  generally  imperson- 
ations of  powers  and  objects  of  nature ;  but 
these  are  still  regarded,  not  so  much  as 
distinct  deities,  but  rather  as  various  mani- 
festations of  a  God  who  is  essentially  one. 
Of  fetish-worship  or  ancestor-worship  in  that 
early  time,  we  find  not  a  trace,  though 
there  is  enough  of  it  later.  The  phenomena 
of  that  early  Vedic  religion  have  been  de- 
scribed, as  beautifully  as  truly,  by  Professor 
Max  Mliller  in  the  following  language :  "  There 
is  a  monotheism  that  precedes  the  polytheism 
of  the  Veda ;  and  even  in  the  invocations  of 
their  innumerable  gods,  the  remembrance  of  a 
God,  one  and  infinite,  breaks  through  the  mist 
of  idolatrous  phraseology,  like  the  blue  sky  that 
is  hidden  by  passing  clouds."  1 

The  best  spirit  of  that  time  is  eloquently 
witnessed  by  the  often-cited  Hymn  121  of 
the  1st  Mandala  of  the  Rig  Yeda,  a  part  of 
which  is  as  follows,  the  first  line  being 

1  "  History  of  Sanskrit  Literature,"  p.  559. 


GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

repeated    as    a    refrain    at    the    end    of    each 
verse :  — 

"What  God  shall  we  adore  with  sacrifice  ? 1 
Him  let  us  praise,  the  golden  child  that  rose 
In  the  beginning,  who  was  born  the  lord  — 
The  one  sole  lord  of  all  that  is  —  who  made 
The  earth,  and  formed  the  sky,  who  giveth  life, 
Who  giveth  strength,  whose  bidding  gods  revere, 
Whose  hiding-place  is  immortality, 
Whose  shadow,  death ;  who  by  his  might  is  king 
Of  all  the  breathing,  sleeping,  waking  world  — 
Who  governs  men  and  beasts  ...  to  whom 
Both  earth  and  heaven,  established  by  his  will, 
Look  up  with  trembling  mind ;  .  .  . 

the  only  God 

Above  the  gods.     May  he  not  injure  us  ! 
He,  the  Creator  of  the  earth  —  the  righteous 
Creator  of  the  sky,  Creator  too 
Of  oceans  bright,  and  far  extending  waters." 2 

Words  such  as  these  might  then  have 
seemed  to  give  promise  of  continued  progress 
toward  clearer  and  clearer  recognition  of  the  one 
God  and  Father  in  heaven ;  but  so  it  was  not 

1  The  words  are  repeated  as  a  refrain  after  each  line. 

2  As  rendered  by  Sir  M.  Monier- Williams,   in  "Indian  Wis- 
dom.'' 2d  ed.,  p.  23. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.      215 

to  be.  Even  in  the  Rig  Veda  appear  concep- 
tions which  were  to  develop  at  last,  not 
into  a  yet  clearer  monotheism,  but  into  the 
most  elaborate  and  consistent  system  of 
pantheism  which  perhaps  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Thus,  in  a  hymn  addressed  to  Aditi, 
we  read :  — 

"  Aditi  is  the  sky  (Dyaus) ;  Aditi  is  the  air ; 
Aditi  is  the  mother  and  father  and  son ;  Aditi 
is  the  collective  gods ;  Aditi  is  the  five  persons ; 
Aditi  is  whatever  has  been  born ;  Aditi  is  what- 
ever is  to  be  born." 

In  the  Upanishads,  which  we  may  assign 
to  a  period  immediately  following  the  sixth 
century  B.C.,  pantheism  is  fully  and  explicitly 
taught,  though  not  always  yet  with  strict  con- 
sistency. Thus,  in  the  Briliad-dranyaka  Upan- 
ishad  (II.  i.  20),  the  relation  of  the  universe, 
visible  and  invisible,  to  the  Supreme  Being, 
is  thus  expressed  :  — 

"  As  the  web  issues  from  the  spider,  as  little 
sparks  proceed  from  fire,  so  from  the  one  Soul 

1  Quoted  by  Robson,  » Hinduism  in  its  Relation  to  Chris- 
tianity," p.  18. 


216       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

proceed  all  breathing  animals,  all  worlds,  all 
the  gods,  and  all  beings."  l 

In  the  Mundaka  Upanishad  (I.  i.  7)  the 
same  thought  is  expressed  thus :  — 

"  As  from  a  blazing  fire  consubstantial  sparks 
proceed  in  a  thousand  ways,  so  from  the  im- 
perishable (Spirit)  various  living  souls  are  pro- 
duced, and  they  return  to  him  too."2 

From  this,  the  logical  conclusion  is  the  dei- 
fication of  man,  and  this  was  affirmed  as  truth 
in  the  first-named  Upanishad  (IV.  4  :  15)  as  it 
still  is  by  the  millions  of  orthodox  Hindoos. 
We  read :  — 

"  When  a  person  regards  his  own  soul  as 
truly  God,  as  the  lord  of  what  was  and  is  to 
be,  then  he  does  not  wish  to  conceal  from  him- 
self that  Soul."  3 

Not  yet,  however,  was  the  pantheistic  doctrine 
accepted  without  controversy.  Out  of  these 
Upanisliads,  arose,  five  or  six  centuries  before 
Christ,  the  so-called  Shad-Darshana,  or  "  Six 
Systems  "  of  philosophy,  which,  as  regards  our 

1  Quoted  by  Sir  M.  Monier- Williams,  "Indian  Wisdom,"  p.  39. 

2  Ib.  p.  43.  3  Ib.  p.  39. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       217 

present  subject,  may  be  regarded  as  three. 
These  all  agreed  on  the  following  points : 
namely,  that  soul,  as,  also,  in  respect  of  its  sub- 
stance, the  material  universe,  is  without  be- 
ginning and  without  end ;  that  consciousness, 
with  its  associated  phenomena,  is  conditioned 
by  the  connexion  of  soul  with  body,  and  is 
maintained  in  most  cases  through  transmi- 
gration. It  was  also  unanimously  agreed  that 
this  state  of  things  is  necessarily  evil,  and  that 
hence  the  summum  bonum,  the  ultimate  end 
of  all  things  and  the  highest  object  of  all  re- 
ligion, is  the  loss  of  personal  self-consciousness, 
and  reabsorption  in  the  one  Supreme  and  only 
Being,  if  there  be  one.1 

In  the  Nyaya  and  the  closely  related  Vaishe- 
shika  system,  the  material  world  is  regarded 
as  made  by  the  aggregation  of  atoms.  If  we 
ask  how  the  atoms  came  together,  or  are 
parted  again,  the  answer  is,  not  by  the  power 
of  God,  but  by  the  power  of  Adrishta,  liter- 
ally, "  the  Unseen."  In  the  Vaisheshika  Shds- 
tra  God  is  not  named,  and  in  the  original 

1  See  "  Indian  Wisdom,"  lect.  iii,  pp.  61-70. 


218      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Nydya  Shdstra  but  once,  and  then  only  inci- 
dentally by  an  objector  to  the  system.  In  this 
case  the  idea  of  God,  all  pervasive  in  Vedic 
days,  had  now  become  a  vanishing  quantity; 
though  the  later  Naiydyika  writers  still  strive 
to  retain  it,  as  when  in  the  Kusmdnjali  we 
read  :  — 

"  An  omniscient  and  indestructible  Being  is 
to  be  proved  from  the  existence  of  effects,  from 
the  combination  of  atoms,"  etc.1 

Still,  even  so,  the  idea  of  God  was  greatly 
lowered,  as  the  atoms  of  which  the  universe 
is  composed,  were  still  assumed  to  be  coeternal 
with  and  independent  of  God. 

In  the  Sdnkhya  the  conception  of  God  has  dis- 
appeared altogether.  It  is  declared  that  "  the 
existence  of  a  supreme  Lord  is  unproved,"  and 
that,  "there  can  be  no  proof  of  his  existence"; 
and  that,  even  if  he  did  exist,  "  he  could  not  be 
effective  of  any  creation."  The  existence  of 
the  universe  is  explained  by  assuming  two  eter- 
nal entities ;  —  Prakriti,  described  as  amulam 

1  "  Indian  Wisdom,"  p.  87. 

2  Ib.  pp.  97,  98. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       219 

mtilam,  "  a  rootless  root,"  and  purusha,  "  the 
soul."  All  that  exists  is  derived  by  a  process 
of  evolution  from  Prakriti,  except  piirusha, 
which  is  regarded  as  apathetic,  inactive,  and 
without  qualities,  though  in  close  connexion 
with  the  former :  a  theory  which,  very  pos- 
sibly, is  connected  closely  with  another,  widely 
accepted  in  India  in  more  recent  times,  that 
a  female  principle,  in  conjunction  with  a  male, 
constitute  the  joint  cause  of  the  world. 

But  although  this  dreary  atheistic  or  agnostic 
system  prevailed  extensively  in  India  till  about 
the  Christian  era,  and  still  has  its  adherents, 
it  was  not  destined  to  become  the  finally  ac- 
cepted philosophy  of  the  Hindoos.  In  the  last- 
named  of  the  Six  Systems,  the  Vedanta,  the 
pantheism,  the  germs  of  which  had  appeared 
so  long  ago  as  the  days  of  the  Rig  Veda,  was 
developed  into  a  pure  monistic  pantheism,  which 
is  the  religious  creed  of  the  great  majority  of 
the  Hindoos  at  the  present  day.  The  whole 
system  is  logically  involved  in  one  short  phrase 
from  the  Chdndogya  UpanisJiad :  "  Ekam 
evddwitiyam"  "one  only  without  a  second"; 


220      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

a  thought  which  is  more  fully  stated  in  the  line, 
"  Brahma  satyam  jagan  mithyd  jivo  brahmaiva 
ndparah,"  "  Brahma  is  real,  the  world  is  unreal ; 
the  soul  is  very  Brahma,  and  no  other." 
Either  of  these  lines  one  may  hear  almost  any 
day  from  the  lips  of  Hindoos  in  India,  as  ex- 
pressing what  to  their  mind  is  the  sum  of  all 
philosophic  and  religious  truth.  On  this  pan- 
theistic foundation,  has  been  raised  the  whole 
immense  structure  of  modern  Puranic  Hin- 
dooism.  On  this  principle,  any  and  every  form 
of  worship  that  any  one  may  prefer,  is  readily 
justified;  whether  it  be  the  worship  of  nature, 
as  in  the  adoration  of  the  sun,  of  deified  men, 
.as  in  the  most  popular  worship  of  Ram  and 
of  Krishna,  or  that  of  the  linga  or  phallus, 
—  in  a  word,  of  the  grandest  and  noblest, 
or  of  the  most  insignificant  and  unworthy, 
and  most  revolting  objects  ;  as  image-worship 
also,  which  in  the  Vedic  days  was  wholly 
unknown. 

It  is  true  that  from  time  to  time,  —  as  in  the 
case,  e.g.,  of  some  of  the  earlier  Nydya  teachers, 
and  commentators  on  the  Sankhya,  as  also  in 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       221 

later  times,  such  reformers  as  Ramanand, 
Ramanuja,  and,  under  the  influence  of  Islam, 
Kabir  and  others,  —  individuals  have  sought  to 
break  away  from  absolute  bondage  to  this 
pantheistic  philosophy  and  regain  the  primitive 
faith  in  one  personal  God.  But,  at  the  best, 
such  individuals  have  themselves  only  succeeded 
in  a  partial  and  imperfect  degree,  and  have 
never  been  able  to  draw  any  great  number  of 
the  people  after  them. 

These  facts  as  to  the  order  of  the  develop- 
ment of  religion  in  India  are  so  well  known  to 
every  one  who  has  studied  the  subject,  and, 
in  particular,  have  been  so  fully  admitted  by 
Professor  Max  Miiller,  that  we  can  only  account 
for  his  assertion  that  the  movement  of  Indian 
thought  has  been  through  polytheism  to  mono- 
theism, by  the  supposition  that  he  uses  the 
word  "  monotheism"  in  a  sense  peculiar  to 
himself.  Monotheism,  in  the  common  sense  of 
that  word,  is  repudiated  by  the  Hindoos,  almost 
with  one  consent.  Their  own  mind  on  the 
matter  is  well  expressed  by  the  following 
words,  which  are  taken  from  an  able  antichris- 


222      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

tian  tract,  recently  issued  by  a  Hindoo  Tract 
Society  in  North  India  :  — 

"  Every  religion  in  the  world  has  its  own 
excrescences  and  its  incrustations.  We  have 
had  our  own  share  of  them.  But  amid  all 
our  wanderings  and  errors  we  have  never  de- 
graded ourselves  so  far  as  to  believe  in  a 
personal  God  ...  to  such  an  extent  as  to 
make  such  a  belief  a  necessary  article  of 
faith."1 

We  have  dwelt  at  considerable  length  upon 
the  historic  development  of  the  Indo-Aryan 
religion,  not  only  because  the  facts  are  so 
thoroughly  ascertained,  but  because  it  has 
been  so  positively  asserted,  and  by  so  high 
authority,  that  the  tendency  of  the  religious 
thought  of  India  has  been  steadily  toward 
monotheism ;  an  assertion  which,  we  repeat, 
can  only  be  justified  by  assuming  for  the  term 
"  monotheism  "  a  meaning  which,  however  con- 
sistent with  its  etymology,  in  actual  use  it 
never  has.  If  monotheism  be  the  truth,  then 

1  Quoted  in  "The  Indian  Standard,"  Sept.  1,  1891;  in  the 
article  "  A  Remarkable  Antichristiau  Tract." 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       223 

the  history  of  Indian  thought  has  been  marked, 
not  by  progress,  but  by  regress ;  by  an  invin- 
cible tendency  away  from  monotheism,  through 
nature-worship,  to  pantheism. 

The  greatest  thinkers  of  India  through  the 
by-gone  centuries,  have  not  been  gradually  ap- 
proaching the  conception  of  God  as  one  and 
personal,  but  have  steadily  drifted  away  from 
it.  In  the  pre-Vedic  period  and  in  the  earliest 
beginning  of  the  Vedic  age,  the  Indo-Aryans 
seem  to  have  still  retained  a  conception,  some- 
what hazy  and  ill-defined,  of  one  Father  in 
heaven ;  and  even  when  worshipping  God 
under  the  forms  and  names  of  natural  objects 
and  visible  phenomena,  they  recognised  Him 
as  one,  and  as  a  personal  Power,  everywhere 
manifest  behind  the  visible  and  material  world. 
But  now  and  for  centuries  past,  the  people  of 
India,  as  a  whole,  with  one  consent  have 
identified  the  Creator  with  the  creature,  the 
Most  Holy  One  with  the  sinner,  and  therewith 
continually  justify  themselves,  not  only  for 
every  form  of  polytheism,  fetish-worship,  idol- 
worship,  or  no  worship  at  all,  but  no  less,  by  a 


224       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

logic  which  on  their  premises  is  unanswerable, 
for  the  commission  of  the  grossest  impurities 
and  the  most  flagrant  crimes. 

If  we  have  justly  inferred  from  the  intima- 
tions in  the  earliest  Vedic  hymns,  and  earlier 
pre-Vedic  period,  that  the  monotheism  which  was 
already  then  disappearing,  was  the  recognised 
faith  of  the  people  of  Iran,  we  should  naturally 
expect  to  find  some  further  testimony  to  this 
fact  in  the  closely  related  Zend-speaking  people 
of  ancient  Persia,  from  the  midst  of  whom,  in 
pre-historic  times,  the  Indo-Aryans  emigrated 
south-eastward  into  India. 

And  this  expectation  is  not  disappointed. 
According  to  Professor  Max  Miiller,  the  relig- 
ion of  Zoroaster,  still  professed  by  the  modern 
Parsees,  was  originally  "  founded  on  a  solemn 
protest  against  the  worship  of  nature  involved 
in  the  Vedas."  l 

It  is  indeed  true  that  in  the  form  which  is 
most  familiar,  the  form  in  which  the  Zoroas- 
trian  religion  maintained  itself  for  centuries, 

1  But  this  is  strenuously  denied  by  Darmesteter.  See  "  The 
Vendidad,"  Introduction,  pp.  Ixxix,  Ixxxi  ;  "Sacred  Books  of 
the  East,"  vol.  iv. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       225 

not  monotheism,  but  dualism,  with  an  idola- 
trous reverence  for  the  elements,  and  especially 
for  fire,  has  been  its  most  characteristic  feature. 
But  in  the  earliest  authorities  on  the  Zoroas- 
trian  religion  this  dualism  is  not  yet  developed. 
According  to  Darmesteter,  there  is  no  evidence 
that  this  dualism  was  generally  accepted  by 
the  ancient  Persians  before  the  end  of  the 
Achamsenian  dynasty,  about  331  B.C.1  There 
is  indeed  evidence  that,  before  this,  the  so-called 
Magi  held  this  dualistic  faith,  but  it  had  not 
gained  general  acceptance.2  Furthermore,  in 
the  Gdthas,  which  form  the  most  ancient  portion 
of  the  Zend  a  vesta,  the  idea  of  two  creators,  one 
good,  the  other  evil,  is  expressly  excluded :  and 
Ahuramazda  is  declared  to  have  created  all 
things,  the  evil  as  well  as  the  good ;  as  in  the 
following  passage  :  — 3 

1  "Sacred  Books  of  the  East,"  vol.  iv.,  pp.  xliii,  xliv. 

2  Ib.  pp.  xlv,  xlvi. 

8  Yasna,  xliv,  5  et  seq.  of  the  Zenda vesta.  The  translation 
presented  is  given  in  an  essay  by  R.  Brown,  F.S.A.,  on  "  The  Relig- 
ion of  Zoroaster,"  read  before  the  Victoria  Institute.  A  more  literal 
translation,  essentially  identical,  will  be  found  in  the  "Sacred 
Books  of  the  East,"  vol.  xxxi. 


226      GENESIS   AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

"That  I  shall  ask  thee,  tell  it  me  right,  0  Ahum! 
Who  was  in  the  beginning  the  father  and  creator  of 

righteousness  ? 

Who  created  the  path  of  the  sun  and  stars  ? 
Who  causes  the  moon  to  increase  and  wane,  but  thou  ? 
Who  is  holding  the  earth  and  the  skies  above  it  ? 
Who  made  the  waters  and  the  trees  of  the  field  ? 
Who  created  the  lights,  of  good  effect,  and  the  darkness  ? 
Who  created  the  sleep  of  good  effect  and  the  activity  ? 
Who  created  the  morning,  noon,  and  night  ? 
Who  has  prepared  the  Bactrian  home  ? 
To  become  acquainted  with  these  things,  I  approach 

thee,  0  Mazda, 

Beneficent  Spirit !    Creator  of  all  beings ! 
That  I  shall  ask  thee,  tell  it  me  right,  0  Aliura ! " 

Elsewhere  Ahuramazda  is  described  as  "he 
who  created  by  means  of  his  wisdom  the  good 
and  the  evil  mind." 

But  along  with  those  earliest  utterances,  we 
find  others  which  exhibit  the  germ  of  that 
dualism  which  was  afterward  so  fully  developed. 

Thus  we  read  in  the  Gathas :  — 

"  Thus  are  the  primeval  spirits,  who  as  a  pair 
(combining  their  opposite  strivings),  and  (yet 
each)  independent  in  his  action,  have  been 
famed  (of  old).  (They  are)  a  better  thing, 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       227 

they  two,  and  a  worse,  as  to  thought,  and  word, 
and  as  to  deed.  And  between  these  two  let 
the  wisely  acting  choose  aright.  (Choose  ye) 
not  (as)  the  evil-doers  !  "* 

Zoroaster  was  a  monotheist.  But  were,  then, 
the  Iranians  in  the  days  when  the  Gdtlias  were 
written  still  monotheists?  Evidently  not;  for 
in  these  same  Gdthas  is  constantly  denounced 
the  worship  of  the  devas,  "  the  priests  and  the 
prophets  of  idols."  Already,  then,  the  Iranian 
branch  of  the  Aryan  race  had  become  polythe- 
ists  and  idolaters.  But,  according  to  these 
same  most  ancient  authorities,  this  polytheism 
was  not  original.  Zoroaster  speaks,  as  it  were, 
as  a  prophet,  even  as  Mohammed  to  the  Arabian 
idolaters  in  a  later  day ;  not  announcing  a  new 
religion,  but  calling  them  back  to  .an  earlier 
and  a  purer  faith  which  they  had  forsaken, 

1  Yasna,  xxx,  3,  x'  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,"  vol.  xxxi,  p.  29. 
On  this  Yasna,  Mr.  Mills,  the  translator,  remarks  that  it  is  the 
"  earliest  statement  of  dualism  which  has  come  down  to  us."  Yet 
these  two  heads  are  called,  "  not  two  persons,  or  at  least  not 
only  two  persons,  but  a  better  thing,  or  principle,  and  a  worse 
one.  (The  qualifying  words  are  all  in  the  neuter.)  It  is  also 
noticeable  that  the  name  Angra  Mainya  does  not  occur  in  this 
section."  —  Op.  cit,  p.  25. 


228      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

the  worship  of  Ahum,  the  "  All- Wise  Spirit." 
For  the  authority  with  which  he  summons 
the  people  to  the  worship  of  this  one  and 
living  God,  he  appeals  to  "  sayings  of  old  which 
Ahum  revealed."  l 

And  yet,  while,  as  we  have  just  seen,  Zoro- 
aster, according  to  the  Gathas,  professed  and 
taught  faith  in  one  God,  he  used  expressions 
which,  howsoever  intended  by  him,  contained 
the  germs  of  a  new  dualistic  degeneration  of 
the  primitive  faith.  The  "  twin  spirits "  of 
Ahuramazda,  which  at  first  represented  only 
the  two  sides  of  the  Divine  activity,  were  soon 
conceived  of  as  two  beings,  the  one,  Ahura- 
mazda,  the  other,  Angromainyus,  or  Ahriman, 

1  The  above  representations  are  accepted  by  learned  Parsees  as 
correct.  Thug,  in  a  Parsee  catechism,  prepared,  consequent 
upon  the  modern  missionary  activity  in  Bombay,  some  years  ago, 
the  following  questions  and  answers,  among  others,  are  given  : — 

"  Q'   Whom  do  we  of  the  Zurthosti  religion  believe  in  ? 

"A.  We  believe  in  one  only  God,  and  do  not  believe  in  any 
besides  Him. 

"  Q.  What  religion  f  prevailed  in  Persia  before  the  time  of 
Zurthost  ? 

"A.  The  kings  and  the  people  were  worshippers  of  God ;  but 
they  had,  like  the  Hindoos,  images  of  the  planets  and  idols  in  their 
temples."  —  See  in  "  Religious  Systems  of  the  World,"  pp.  174, 175. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       229 

the  Evil  One,  the  Great  Serpent.  The  latter 
was  regarded  as  independent  and  self-existent, 
but  as  differing  from  Ahuramazda,  in  that  he 
lacks  foresight,  so  that  he  will  at  last  be  defeated. 
To  these  two,  again,  were  added  a  multitude 
of  inferior  beings,  personifications,  many  of 
them,  of  the  good  or  evil  attributes  supposed 
to  belong  to  Ahuramazda  or  Angromainyus ; 
the  Ameslia  spentas  on  the  side  of  the  former 
and  an  army  of  demons,  Akemano,  Taric,  and 
the  rest,  on  the  side  of  the  latter. 

Yet  in  this  new  dualism  and  polydernonism 
the  mind  could  not  rest,  and  in  various  sects 
an  effort  was  made  to  include  the  two,  the 
good  and  the  evil  principle,  in  a  third,  from 
which  they  both  were  supposed  to  proceed ; 
especially  in  an  abstraction,  Zrvan  Akarana, 
"  Boundless  Space."  But  speculations  of  tHs 
kind  never  seem  to  have  gained  general  accept- 
ance. If  one  may  accept  without  qualification 
the  representations  of  such  eminent  Parsees  as 
Dhdabhai  Naorofi,  the  modern  Parsees  must 
indeed  in  fairness  be  described  as  monotheists.1 

1  "Religious  Systems  of  the  World,"  v,  p.  182. 


230      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

But  none  the  less  does  the  history  of  the 
Zoroastrian  religion  confirm  the  general  propo- 
sition, that  man  shows,  as  a  law  of  his  religious 
development,  an  invincible  tendency  to  degen- 
eration, only  arrested  or  retarded  in  any  suc- 
cessful degree  where  we  are  able  to  trace  the 
influence  of  that  special  line  of  monotheistic 
thought  represented,  in  the  first  instance,  in 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  and  then  in  the  New 
Testament  and  the  Quran,  which  represent 
diverse  descendants  of  the  same  original  stock. 
It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  followers 
of  Zoroaster,  through  most  of  their  history, 
first  in  the  first  Jewish  dispersion,  then,  in 
later  days,  through  contact  with  Nestorian 
Christianity  and  with  Islam,  and,  last  of  all, 
now  with  modern  Christian  missionary  work, 
have  been  almost  from  the  first  exposed  to 
influences  which  should  help  them  to  hold  on 
in  an  exceptional  way  to  the  monotheism  of 
the  earliest  Gdihas,  and  so  retard  the  usual 
degeneration. 

Unlike  the  religions  of  Egypt,  of  India,  and 
of  Persia,  that  of  the  ancient  Babylonians,  in 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       231 

the  earliest  period  to  which  extant  records 
ascend,  presents  no  certain  suggestion  of  a 
monotheistic  faith.1  The  earliest  literature 
which  has  been  deciphered  is  that  of  the 
"  Magical  Texts."  It  covers  a  period  extending 
back  for  an  unknown  time  prior  to  the  rise 
of  the  Shemitic  supremacy,  about  3750  B.C., 
in  the  Euphrates  valley,  under  Sargon  I.  These 
texts,  so  far  as  published,  exhibit  among  that 
ancient  Turanian  people  in  the  lower  Eu- 
phrates valley  nothing  higher  than  a  supersti- 
tious animism,  with  its  professional  exorcists, 
who  claimed  to  be  able,  by  the  use  of  various 
spells  and  incantations,  to  deliver  men  from  the 
malign  influence  of  numberless  spirits  believed  to 
exist  in  the  various  objects  of  nature.  Of  the 
idea  of  a  God,  in  our  high  sense  of  the  word, 
in  this  literature,  so  far  as  published,  we  have 
found  no  certain  trace. 

Among  the  countless  spirits  recognised,  ap- 
pear references  to  the  spirits  of  heaven  and 

1  Our  chief  authority  for  what  is  said  regarding  the  Babylonian 
religion,  is  Professor  Sayce.  See  The  Hihbert  Lectures,  1879, 
"  The  Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,  as  illustrated  by  the  Religion 
of  Ancient  Egypt." 


232      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

of  the  earth,  as  specially  eminent.  These  seem, 
then,  to  have  been  conceived  of  separately  from 
the  natural  objects  which  they  were  supposed 
to  animate,  and  were  gradually  developed  into 
creative  gods.  In  Southern  Babylonia,  in  this 
period,  about  the  city  of  Eridu,  on  the  Persian 
Gulf,  appears  the  worship  of  Ea,  or  Oannes, 
the  god  of  culture  or  of  wisdom,  and  in  Northern 
Babylonia,  that  of  Mul-lil,  the  lord  of  the  ghost 
world.  A  god  of  fire  was  also  specially  wor- 
shipped, who  afterward  was  identified  with  the 
Sun-god. 

As  this  earliest  known  period  approached  its 
close,  a  little  before  3750  B.C.,  appear  the  oldest 
of  the  so-called  "  Penitential  Psalms,"  a  litera- 
ture distinguished  by  a  very  marked  develop- 
ment of  the  sense  of  sin,  though  yet  without 
any  very  clear  expression  of  monotheistic  belief. 
In  these,  with  the  "  god,  known  or  unknown," 
frequently  invoked,  is  associated  a  goddess, 
whose  pardon  and  favour  also  is  begged ;  a  cir- 
cumstance in  which,  in  the  opinion  of  Professor 
Sayce,  we  are  to  recognise  the  first  trace  of  the 
rising  influence  of  Shemitic  thought  upon  that 
of  the  Turanian  race. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       233 

The  Shemitic  political  supremacy,  which  be- 
gan with  Sargon  I,  introduced  a  new  stage  of 
religious  development,  in  which  the  earlier  ani- 
mism gradually  sank  to  a  subordinate  position, 
and  was  supplanted  by  the  higher  conceptions 
of  the  Shemitic  nature-worship.  In  this  the 
Sun-god,  variously  known  in  his  various  aspects 
as  SamaSy  or  Merodach,  or  Adar,  appears  as  the 
head  of  a  divine  family,  in  which  he  stands 
forth  as  omnipotent  creator.  With  him  are  as- 
sociated a  goddess,  —  after  the  usual  Shemitic 
fashion,  —  as  also  the  Moon-god,  and  a  host  of 
minor  deities,  which  at  a  later  day  are  said  to 
be  no  less  than  forty-five  thousand  in  number. 
And  this  type  of  religion  continued  to  prevail 
in  the  Euphrates  valley  region  until  the  final 
downfall  of  the  Babylonian  power,  in  the  sixth 
century  B.C. 

Such,  then,  was  the  order  of  the  development 
of  religion  among  the  Babylonians.  Earliest  of 
all,  we  find  a  worship  of  spirits,  with  which 
natural  objects  were  supposed  to  be  animated ; 
then  gradually,  under  external  Shemitic  influ- 
ence, arose  a  system  of  nature- worship,  espe- 


234       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

cially  that  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars, 
conceived  of  later  in  an  anthropomorphic  way, 
and  each  associated  with  a  female  counterpart, 
or  goddess. 

Connected  with  this  religious  development  we 
find,  as  in  India  and  elsewhere,  that  a  relig- 
ious philosophy  gradually  arose.  The  god  Ana 
(Shem.  Ann),  originally  the  god  of  the  visible 
sky,  became  first  the  "  supreme  lord  of  the  uni- 
verse," the  "  one  god  against  whom  none  may 
rebel."  But  this  supreme  god  of  that  time  was 
only  conceived  of  in  a  pantheistic  manner,  and 
was  identified  with  the  universe  itself.  On  the 
other  hand,  while  some  resolved  all  that  exists 
into  the  Divine,  last  of  all,  others  maintained 
that  matter  itself  was  the  one  substance  and 
primal  cause  of  all  that  is,  even  of  the  great 
gods  themselves.  In  either  case  alike,  the  ten- 
dency was,  not  to  monotheism,  but  to  monism. 

Now  it  is  indeed  true  that  extant  sources,  so  far 
a i,<*  yet  4mown,  have  not  hitherto  revealed,  in  the 
distant  antiquity  of  the  Akkadian  supremacy  in 
the  Euphrates  valley,  any  distinct  recognition 
of  God  as  one,  living,  and  personal;  and  thus 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       235 

they  afford  us  no  direct  evidence  of  a  degenera- 
tion of  religion  from  this  higher  conception 
to  the  ancient  Akkadian  animism.  But  it  is  of 
the  first  importance  to  observe  that  throughout 
the  whole  four  thousand  years  or  more  of  Baby- 
lonian history,  there  is  no  indication  whatever 
of  any  tendency  to  the  evolution  of  a  monothe- 
istic faith.  Instead  of  this,  we  find  a  polythe- 
ism which,  if  higher  in  an  intellectual  aspect 
than  the  animism  which  preceded  it,  yet  ever 
exhibits  more  and  more  of  awful  moral  degra- 
dation ;  and  along  with  this,  as  in  other  lands, 
here  pantheism,  and  there  materialism,  both  alike 
excluding  the  idea  of  a  God,  one  and  personal, 
as  the  Creator  and  Governor  of  the  world. 

Hence,  the  facts,  when  thoughtfully  consid- 
ered, give  no  support  for  the  opinion  which  one 
might  hastily  form,  that  Babylonian  history,  at 
least,  must  be  allowed  to  sustain  the  theory  of 
the  development  of  monotheism  out  of  a  primi- 
tive animism.  It  is  true  that  the  early  animism 
of  the  early  Akkadians  was  succeeded  by  forms 
of  religion  which,  regarded  merely  from  an  in- 
tellectual point  of  view,  were  less  degraded  than 


236       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

the  religion  of  the  Magical  Texts.  But  even 
this  improvement,  of  such  sort  as  it  was,  can- 
not be  ascribed  to  any  native  tendency  to  de- 
velop a  higher  form  of  religion  among  those 
Turanian  peoples,  but  only,  as  Sayce  and  Lenor- 
mant  have  shown,  to  the  influence  of  Shemitic 
thought.  But  even  when  this  became  domi- 
nant, the  movement  of  religious  thought  was 
still  not  toward  monotheism,  but  rather,  as  in 
Egypt  and  India,  toward  an  increasing  polythe- 
ism, justified  or  excused  by  a  pantheistic  or  a 
materialistic  philosophy. 

If,  then,  the  tendency  of  Babylonian  thought, 
throughout  the  whole  historic  period,  was 
indisputably  in  another  direction  than  to- 
wards monotheism,  it  is  obviously  most  il- 
logical and  unscientific  to  assume  that  in  the 
prehistoric  period  the  tendency  had  been  the 
reverse.  And  thus  we  are  led  to  recognise  in 
the  early  animism  of  the  Euphrates  valley 
Akkadians,  nothing  primitive,  but  rather  an 
extreme  degeneration  of  religion  from  an  earlier 
and  purer  form,  such  as  history  compels  us  to 
recognise  in  the  case  of  other  peoples,  where 
the  historic  process  can  be  more  clearly  traced. 


OKUER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       237 

About  2200  B.C.,  the  date  when  trust- 
worthy history  begins  in  China,  according  to 
Dr.  Legge  and  other  high  authorities,1  the  Chi- 
nese were,  as  now,  worshipping  the  heaven  and 
the  earth,  and  the  spirits  of  their  ancestors. 
By  the  name  "  Heaven,"  however,  he  under- 
stands that  they  really,  in  the  first  instance,  de- 
noted the  Supreme  God.  That  it  might  have 
been  so,  we  shall  easily  see  when  we  remember 
that  even  among  ourselves  the  word  "  Heaven  " 
is  often  used  for  the  Supreme  Being ;  and  that 
in  this  we  have  the  warrant,  as  he  reminds 
us,  even  of  the  New  Testament ;  as  in  Luke 
xv,  where  the  prodigal  son  is  made  to  say :  "I 
have  sinned  against  Heaven."  Besides  the  wor- 
ship of  heaven,  the  Chinese  worshipped  other 
objects  in  nature,  as  the  earth,  the  sun,  moon, 
and  stars,  and  also  the  spirits  of  their  ancestors ; 
all  of  which  cults  have  survived  to  the  pres- 
ent time. 

But  against  the  opinion  of  some,  that  nature- 
worship  was  the  earliest  form  of  religion 
among  the  Chinese,  Dr.  Legge  adduces  the 

1  "Religious  Systems  of  the  World,'1  London,  1890,  pp.  46,  47. 


238      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

pertinent  testimony  of  Confucius,  that  by  the 
ceremonies  of  the  sacrifices  to  heaven  and  earth 
"  they  worship  God."  So  in  prayers  addressed 
to  the  "Bain  Master/'  the  " Cloud  Master,"  and 
others,  these  are  declared  to  be  "  ministers 
assisting  the  Supreme  God."  *  Such  expressions 
as  these  seem  indeed  to  imply  that  in  early 
times,  as  in  India  the  worshippers  of  Varuna, 
so  the  Chinese  had  still  a  lingering  conscious- 
ness of  the  unity  and  personality  of  God.  But, 
if  one  may  trust  the  testimony  of  missionaries 
and  others  who  have  long  lived  among  the 
people,  the  official  worship  of  heaven  and  earth 
by  the  emperor,  in  modern  times,  is  now,  and 
for  a  long  time  past  has  been,  an  unqualified 
idolatry.  Such  assure  us  that  heaven,  as  thus 
worshipped,  is  not  now  regarded  as  a  term  for 
God :  it  denotes  the  visible  heaven  deified.  That 
the  primitive  ancestors  of  the  Chinese  may  have 
at  first  worshipped  the  one  God  under  the  name 
and  symbol  of  the  over-arching  heaven,  if  we 
may  reason  from  the  analogy  of  religious  his- 
tory among  other  peoples,  is  likely  enough ;  but 

1  "  Religious  Systems  of  the  World,"  p.  48. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       239 

for  centuries  the  idea  of  God  has  practically 
disappeared  from  the  consciousness  of  the  whole 
Chinese  nation.  It  has  been  utterly  lost  in  a 
worship  of  nature,  of  spirits  numberless,  of 
idols,  and  of  the  departed  dead.  As  regards 
this  most  popular  ancestor-worship,  Dr.  Legge 
indeed  insists  that  even  the  spirit  of  Confucius 
himself  receives  merely  the  worship  of  grati- 
tude for  his  great  services  to  the  nation,  and  not 
the  worship  of  adoration,  such  as  is  proper  to 
God  alone.1  However,  granting  that  this  may 
have  been  so  in  the  beginning,  even  Dr.  Legge 
speaks  of  the  danger  that  this  worship  may 
lead  to  superstition  and  idolatry,  and  gives  an 
example  of  this  in  the  actual  deification  of 
Kwan  Yu,  a  famous  warrior  of  the  third  Chris- 
tian century,  who  has  become  to  the  Chinese 
the  god  of  war.2  Missionaries,  with  one  accord, 
assure  us  that  this  danger  has  long  ago  been 
universally  realised  in  fact. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  monotheism 
of  the  primitive  days  of  the  Chinese  nation, 
nothing  is  more  certain  than  that,  at  the  very 

1  "Religious  Systems  of  the  World,"  p.  51.         2  Ib.  p.  52. 


240      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

beginning  of  the  historic  period,  it  had  become, 
practically,  an  inoperative  belief,  if  indeed  held 
at  all.  In  later  days,  as  is  well  known,  Con- 
fucius carefully  avoided  teaching  anything  as  to 
the  Supreme  Being,  or  the  relations  of  man  to 
heaven.  It  was  enough  that  the  emperor 
offered  sacrifices  at  the  proper  time  to  the 
spirits  of  heaven  and  of  earth.  If  man  had 
any  relations  to  God,  any  duties  owed  to  Heaven, 
Confucius  ignored  them.  Professor  Beal  tells 
us  that,  throughout  the  whole  period  of  more 
than  two  thousand  years  down  to  about  209 
B.C.,  while  there  had  been  much  of  material 
and  of  intellectual  activity  among  the  Chinese, 
there  was  "  never  a  sign  of  any  spiritual  life  or 
aspiration." l  Lao  Tze  had  in  the  mean  time 
appeared,  but  neither  did  he,  any  more  than 
Confucius,  speak  a  word  concerning  the  living 
and  true  God.  The  Tao  of  which  he  had  so 
much  to  say,  whatever  may  have  been  intended 
by  the  word,  was  not  "  God."  That  Tao  denoted 
any  personal  being  is  expressly  denied.2  And, 

1  "  Religious  Systems  of  the  World,"  p.  74. 

2  Tims,  e.g.,  Chuang  Tzu  says:   "  Tao  is  impersonal  and  pas- 
sionless."    Ib.  p.  57.     See  also  pp.  59,  60. 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.      241 

though  the  writings  of  the  "  Old  Philosopher," 
and  some  few  of  his  disciples,  contain  some  sen- 
timents which  are  admirable  in  their  moral 
character,  yet  Taoism,  destitute  of  moral  power, 
has  degenerated  until  all  agree  that  it  repre- 
sents little  else  to-day  than  a  confused  agglom- 
eration of  superstitious  beliefs  in  evil  spirits,  and 
various  magical  arts  for  their  exorcism.  Prac- 
tically, this  most  ancient  of  all  existing  nations 
gives  one  of  the  most  impressive  proofs  to  be 
found  in  all  history,  that  in  humanity  is  no 
innate  tendency  toward  monotheism,  but  rather 
a  most  persistent  and  inveterate  inclination 
away  from  the  very  thought  of  God,  to  the 
most  debased  and  superstitious  forms  of  re- 
ligion. 

In  the  whole  four  thousand  years  covered  by 
authentic  Chinese  history,  we  thus  search  in 
vain  for  any  evidence  of  a  tendency  to  advance 
toward  higher  and  purer  conceptions  of  divine 
things.  If  Dr.  Legge  is  right  in  his  belief,  that, 
according  to  the  Chinese  authorities,  monothe- 
ism was  really  recognised  in  the  earliest  times, 
then  it  is  certain  that  from  that  faith  they  have 

B 


242       GENESIS    AND    GKOWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

utterly  fallen  away.  If  the  ancestor-worship 
was  not  at  first,  as  Dr.  Legge  thinks,  idolatrous 
in  character,  it  seems,  without  doubt,  to  have 
long  ago  become  so.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  many  of  the  best  scholars  in  China  think, 
Dr.  Legge  is  mistaken  in  the  interpretation  of 
the  Chinese  classics,  by  which  he  sustains  his 
contention  for  their  original  monotheism,  it  is 
still  certain  that,  during  the  whole  period  of 
trustworthy  Chinese  history,  that  people  have 
shown  not  the  slightest  tendency  to  develop 
a  monotheistic  religion,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
like  other  races,  a  constant  inclination  to  re- 
ligious debasement. 

Such,  then,  are  the  facts  with  regard  to  the 
peoples  of  culture.  We  find  among  them,  with 
the  single  exception  of  the  Shemitic  people  of 
Israel,  no  instance  either  of  a  nation  which  has 
retained  an  original  monotheism,  or  which  has 
gradually  risen  from  some  lower  faith  to  a 
monotheistic  religion.  If  this  be  true  of  the 
nations  of  culture,  it  is  no  less  true  of  barba- 
rous tribes.  In  a  multitude  of  instances,  the 
traditions  of  such  degraded  peoples  remarkably 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.      243 

confirm  the  testimony  of  cultivated  races  to 
an  original  faith  in  one  God,  living  and  true,  the 
great  God  above  all  gods.  Of  this  fact,  only  a 
few  illustrations  can  be  given.  Among  the  abo- 
riginal tribes  of  India,  the  most  numerous  and 
important  are  the  Santals.  These  are  at  pres- 
ent worshippers  of  demons,  an  extremely  de- 
graded people,  without  an  alphabet,  and  without 
a  literature.  Their  worship  chiefly  consists  in 
various  rites  intended  to  propitiate  a  multitude 
of  evil  spirits,  with  whom  they  suppose  them- 
selves to  be  surrounded.  But  their  tradition, 
already  referred  to,1  witnesses  that  it  was  not  al- 
ways so.  They  say  that  at  first  they  worshipped 
the  one  God,  who  in  the  beginning  made  one 
man  and  one  woman;  that  the  Evil  Spirit, 
Marang  Buru,  appearing  to  their  first  parents 
under  the  form  of  a  great  mountain,  persuaded 
them  to  make  a  drink  of  the  fruit  of  a  certain 
tree,  by  which  they  became  intoxicated.  Be- 
cause of  this,  God  was  angry,  and  they  came 
under  the  power  of  Marang  Burn  and  the  other 
evil  spirits  under  him,  to  whom,  therefore,  they 

1  Sup.  p.  61. 


244      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

must  now  present  their  offerings,  instead  of  to 
God. 

The  closely  related  Kolhs  have  in  like  manner 
retained  the  memory  of  a  primitive  faith  in 
one  invisible  God,  whom  they  call  Sing  Bonga, 
who  created  all  things.  But  he  is  regarded 
as  practically  far  away,  and  their  worship  is 
chiefly  rendered,  like  that  of  the  Santals,  to  a 
multitude  of  evil  spirits. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  world,  the  ancient 
Peruvians,  and  the  still  more  ancient  and  abo- 
riginal Aimares,  had  preserved  the  tradition 
of  a  primitive  monotheistic  faith.  They  had 
this  quaint  tradition.  Because  God  was  all 
alone,  he  longed  for  some  one  to  love  him. 
And  so  he  made  Kuru,  the  first  man.  And 
Kuru  had  a  son,  and  the  son  died.  And  God 
said  unto  Kuru :  "  Thy  son  shall  rise  again  from 
the  dead ;  eat  not  therefore  of  the  fruit  which 
grows  from  his  grave."  But  Kuru  disobeyed 
this  command  of  God.  And  God  said  unto 
him :  "  Because  thou  hast  not  obeyed  me,  thou 
shalt  have  toil,  and  thou  shalt  die ;  and  all  men 
shall  die  with  thee." 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       245 

The  fetish-worshipping  negroes  of  the  West 
Coast  of  Africa,  in  like  manner,  confess  as  prim- 
itive, a  faith  in  one  invisible  God,  the  Creator 
and  Ruler  of  all,  who  at  first  held  communion 
with  their  fathers,  as  he  does  now  no  longer. 
They  call  him  Kopong,  or  Onjang  Kopong,  a 
word  apparently  identical  with  the  word  Ku~bong, 
for  "  God,"  used  by  the  aborigines  of  Australia, 
and  the  word  Bonga,  "  God,"  among  the  Kolh 
aborigines  of  India.  Indeed,  the  full  name, 
Onjang  Kopong,  has  the  very  same  meaning 
with  the  phrase  Sing  Bonga,  "  Shining  Spirit," 
which  the  Kolhs  use  to  denote  the  Supreme 
Being. 

As  all  know,  many  traditions  and  religious 
usages  of  the  American  Indians  tell,  in  like 
manner,  of  a  Great  Spirit,  who  is  above  all, 
sometimes,  indeed,  confounded  with  heroes  of 
olden  times,  but  often,  again,  distinctly  referred  to 
as  the  invisible  Being  who  has  made  all  that  is. 
Thus,  the  Chippewas  pray  to  Manedo,  called  by 
the  Delawares  Manitowa  Manitou,  who,  they 
say,  is  the  Creator  of  the  world.  Besides  him, 
we  are  told,  they  worship  neither  sun,  nor 


246       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

moon,  nor  any  god.     To  multiply  examples  is 
needless. 

With  the  single  exception,  then,  of  the  She- 
mitic  people  of  Israel,  there  is  no  instance  of 
any  of  the  peoples  of  antiquity,  whether  cultured 
or  uncultured,  gradually  rising  from  the  wor- 
ship of  nature,  of  fetishes,  or  of  ancestors,  to 
that  of  the  one  living  and  true  God.  Where 
among  any  ancient  people  we  find  indications 
of  monotheistic  belief,  these  are  most  conspicu- 
ous, not  in  the  latest,  but  in  the  earliest  period 
of  their  history.  The  history  of  religion  exhib- 
its, as  a  general  law,  a  tendency  to  fall  away 
from  the  purity  of  monotheistic  faith,  wherever 
in  an  earlier  time  it  has  been  held.  Hence,  the 
hypothesis  that  man  began  his  religious  life 
with  some  low  form  of  religion,  from  which,  by 
a  normal  process  of  natural  development,  mono- 
theism has  been  at  last  evolved,  is  not  sustained 
by  facts.  These  point  to  a  conclusion  which  is 
the  exact  reverse  of  this ;  a  conclusion  which, 
however  irreconcilable  with  modern  theories  of 
evolution,  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  pre- 
sumption already  established  by  the  considera- 


ORDER    OF    RELIGIOUS    DEVELOPMENT.       247 

tion  of  the  potency  of  sin  as  an  omnipresent 
factor  in  the  development  of  religion.  The  only 
inference  which  is  justified  by  the  facts  thus  far 
reviewed  is  this :  that  man  began  with  the 
knowledge  —  very  elementary,  no  doubt,  but, 
none  the  less,  correct  —  of  God,  his  Creator,  as 
a  Being,  one  and  personal  like  himself ;  and 
that  animism,  polytheism,  pantheism,  atheism, 
and  all  other  forms  of  religion  or  religious  phi- 
losophy, must  be  regarded  as  various  forms  of 
degeneration  from  that  primitive  faith. 


LECTURE   VIII. 

SHEMITIC   MONOTHEISM.  —  CONCLUSION. 

IN  the  previous  lecture  it  has  been  shown 
that  in  the  Indo-Germanic  and  Turanian  races 
there  is  no  evidence  of  a  general  tendency  to 
the  evolution  of  a  monotheistic  faith,  but  rather 
the  reverse.  In  those  cases  where  monotheistic 
conceptions  have  found  expression  in  the  litera- 
ture of  a  people,  as  in  Egypt,  India,  and  Persia, 
these  have  been  chiefly  characteristic,  not  of  the 
latest,  but  of  the  earliest,  stage  of  their  relig- 
ious development.  The  tendency  throughout 
the  whole  historic  period,  in  every  such  case, 
has  been  to  fall  away  from  monotheism  into 
nature-worship  of  various  forms,  ancestor-wor- 
ship, polytheism,  fetishism,  and  idolatry.  And 
if  among  the  educated  classes  the  idea  of  the 
unity  of  the  First  Cause  of  the  universe  has 
been  attained  or  preserved,  it  has  commonly 
been  under  the  perverted  forms  of  pantheism 
248 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  249 

or  materialism,  in  which  TO  povov  has  been 
substituted  for  6  /loVos,  an  impersonal  substance, 
acting  under  the  laws  of  necessity,  in  the  place 
of  a  personal  God,  working  in  nature  and  in 
providence  as  an  almighty  free  agent. 

In  other  instances,  again,  the  earliest  records 
of  a  people,  as,  e.g.,  those  of  the  Akkadians  of 
the  Euphrates  valley,  and  perhaps  the  Chinese, 
disclose  no  certain  evidence  of  the  existence,  in 
the  most  ancient  period  of  their  history,  of  a 
monotheistic  belief,  but,  instead,  either  a  wor- 
ship of  ancestors,  as  among  the  latter,  or  of 
various  elemental  spirits,  as  among  the  former. 
Still,  it  has  appeared  that  such  cases  in  reality 
give  no  support  to  the  theory  of  a  naturalistic 
evolution  of  a  monotheistic  religion :  for  the 
reason  that,  throughout  their  whole  history, 
extending,  in  the  case  of  the  peoples  mentioned, 
over  thousands  of  years,  no  tendency,  however 
slight,  has  been  manifest,  toward  the  develop- 
ment of  a  monotheistic  belief,  but,  instead,  a 
progressive  lapse  into  forms  of  religion  ever 
more  and  more  debased  and  corrupt. 

Hence,  inasmuch  as,  in  the  absence  of  evi- 


250      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

dence  to  the  contrary,  it  must  be  supposed  that 
the  law  of  religious  tendency  must  have  been 
the  same  in  prehistoric  times  as  since,  we  have 
therefore  been  led  to  conclude  that  the  suppo- 
sition that  man  must  have  begun  with  some 
extremely  low  and  superstitious  type  of  religion, 
from  which,  by  slow  degrees,  in  a  purely  nat- 
ural way,  under  an  eternal  law  of  progress,  he 
has  advanced,  at  last,  in  many  instances  at 
least,  to  the  faith  in  one  personal  God,  must 
be  rejected  as  irreconcilable  with  such  facts  as 
have  been  presented.  If  we  may  legitimately 

0 

infer  the  unknown  past  from  the  past  which 
is  known,  the  inference  seems  unavoidable  that 
not  animism,  or  fetishism,  or  some  vague  type 
of  nature-worship,  but  a  simple  form  of  mono- 
theism, must  have  been  the  primitive  faith  of 
man,  of  which  all  other  forms  of  religion  ex- 
hibit various  degrees  of  degeneration  and  de- 
basement. 

But  it  has  been  maintained  that  to  this 
general  law  as  to  the  order  of  the  develop- 
ment of  religion,  at  least  one  exception  must 
be  admitted,  so  important  as  to  nullify  the 


SHEM1TIC    MONOTHEISM.  251 

force  of  the  above  argument.  It  is  said  that 
in  the  Shemitic  race,  at  least,  we  have  an 
undeniable  example  of  the  gradual  evolution 
of  a  monotheistic  faith  from  an  original  low 
type  of  religion ;  so  that  the  assertion  of  a 
universal  law  to  the  contrary  is  thereby  dis- 
proved. For,  it  is  argued,  since  a  natural 
evolution  of  monotheism  has  certainly  taken 
place  in  this  great  division  of  the  human 
race,  within  historic  times,  it  is  quite 
possible  that  such  a  law  of  development 
may  have  prevailed  universally  in  prehistoric 
times ;  so  that  there  is  nothing  to  forbid 
our  supposing  that  the  religious  life  of  man 
may  have  begun  with  some  very  low  form 
of  belief,  from  which  he  gradually  rose  until 
he  attained  such  sublime  conceptions  of  the 
Supreme  Being  as  are  expressed,  for  example, 
in  the  most  ancient  religion  of  Egypt. 

By  such  writers  it  is  often  claimed  that 
this  has  been,  indeed,  the  special  glory  of 
the  Shemitic  race,  as  contrasted  with  others ; 
that  it  has  been  endowed  with  a  peculiar 
genius  for  religion.  This  is  said  to  have 


252      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF   RELIGION. 

been  its  distinguishing  characteristic,  as  truly 
as  a  genius  for  art  was  that  of  the  an- 
cient Greeks,  and  a  genius  for  law  and  gov- 
ernment was  that  of  the  ancient  Romans. 
Renan,  among  others,  has  affirmed  this,  with 
characteristic  assurance,  as  one  of  the  great 
race  contrasts,  in  such  words  as  the  fol- 
lowing :  — 

"  The  Indo-European  race,  distracted  by 
the  variety  of  the  universe,  never  by  itself 
arrived  at  monotheism.  The  Shemitic  race, 
on  the  contrary,  guided  by  its  firm  and  sure 
sight,  instantly  unmasked  Divinity,  and  with- 
out reflection  or  reasoning  attained  the  purest 
form  of  religion  that  humanity  has  known."1 

Again :  — 

"  When  and  how  did  the  Shemitic  race  arrive 
at  this  notion  of  the  divine  unity,  which  the 
world  has  admitted  on  the  faith  of  its 
teaching  ?  I  think  it  was  by  a  primitive 
intuition,  and  from  its  earliest  days.  .  .  . 
The  Shemitic  race  .  .  .  reached,  evidently 

1  "  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,"  authorised  trans- 
lation, Amer.  ed.,  p.  115. 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  253 

without  an  effort,  the  notion  of  the  Supreme 
God."  1 

These  are  fine  words,  but  is  the  assertion 
true?  Is  the  Shemitic  monotheism  rightly 
explained  as  a  mere  natural  product  of  an 
exceptional  race  genius?  This  is  the  question 
to  which  we  address  ourselves  in  the  present 
lecture.  Or,  as  it  has  been  felicitously  put  by 
Professor  Ebrard  :  "  Is  the  one  God  a  product 
of  Israel,  or  is  Israel  a  product  of  the  one 
God?"2 

We  at  once  admit  the  Shemitic  monotheism 
as  a  fact.  And  the  fact  is  the  more  signifi- 
cant, when  we  call  to  mind  that  only  as 
preached,  in  the  first  instance,  by  Shemitic 
prophets  and  apostles,  has  monotheism  ever 
become  to  any  extent  a  victorious  power  over 
heathenism  and  heathen  philosophy.  Among 
non-Shemitic  peoples  monotheism  has  only 
successfully  maintained  a  supremacy  in  so  far 
as  these  have  come  more  or  less  directly 
under  the  influence  of  Shemitic  thought,  as 

1  "  Studies  of  Religious  History  and  Criticism,"  authorised  trans- 
lation, Amer.  ed.,  pp.  115,  116.  2  "  Apologetik,"  2  Bd.  §  306. 


254       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

expressed  either  in  Judaism,  Christianity,  or 
Islam.  The  monotheism  of  ancient  Egypt, 
of  the  primitive  Aryans  in  India  and  Persia, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  unable  to  maintain 
itself  successfully  against  the  inborn  tendency 
of  man  to  debase  the  ideal  of  religious  faith. 
Shemitic  monotheism  alone  has  shown  itself 
a  conquering  and  transforming  power  in  the 
history  of  the  world. 

Again,  whether  or  not  we  attribute  to  the 
Shemitic  races  a  special  religious  genius,  of 
which  their  monotheism  is  the  product,  it  is 
to  be  admitted  that  among  them,  as  Principal 
Fairbairn  has  well  shown,  a  higher  conception 
of  the  Divine  nature  seems  to  have  originally 
prevailed  than  among  the  Indo-Germanic 
races.  This  is  conclusively  shown  by  a 
comparison  of  the  oldest  names  used  in  each 
race  to  designate  the  Deity.  While  these  names 
among  the  Indo-Germanic  races  were  commonly 
derived  from  the  forces  and  phenomena  of 
material  nature,  the  earliest  and  most  univer- 
sal names  of  God  among  the  Shemitic  peoples 
designate  the  Deity  instead  by  moral  and 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  255 

metaphysical  attributes,  rightly  imputed  to 
the  Supreme  Being. 

As  a  familiar  example  of  the  former  may 
be  taken  the  Sanskrit  word  deva,  from  the 
root  div,  "  to  shine,"  thus  literally  meaning 
"the  shining  one,"  whence  have  come  the 
Latin  deus,  the  Old  German  Tio,  etc.,  etc.,  to 
which  may  be  added  the  other  Yedic  name 
of  deity,  dyam,  "the  heaven,"  which  appears 
also  in  the  Greek  Zeus,  and  the  first  syllable 
of  the  Latin  Ju-piter. 

In  contrast  with  a  large  number  of  names 
of  this  character  may  be  noted  the  old  Assyr- 
ian Ilu,  Heb.  El,  from  a  root  meaning  "  to 
be  strong,"  thus  denoting  the  Deity  as  "the 
Mighty  One  "  ;  Eloah,  plur.  Elohim,  Ar.  Allah, 
from  a  root  signifying  "to  tremble,"  and  so 
"to  fear,"  thus  denoting  God  as  the  proper 
object  of  fear  and  of  worship.  So,  in  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures  we  meet  with  such  com- 
pound appellatives  as  El  Elyon,  "  God  the 
Most  High,"  a  term  which  has  also  been  found 
in  a  letter  sent  to  Egypt  from  a  priest-king 
reigning  in  Jerusalem,  —  after  the  manner  of 


256       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

Melchizedek  at  an  earlier  day,  —  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Moses.  Again, 
we  have  El  Shaddai,  designating  God  as  the 
"  All-bountiful  One,"  the  great  Giver  of  all,  and 
Yahveh,  "He  who  is,"  or  "who  will  be,"  the 
Self-existent  One.  Marked  by  the  same  char- 
acteristic are  the  names  common  in  the  She- 
mitic  heathenism,  such  as  Badly  " Owner," 
"  Lord  "  ;  Molech,  "  King  "  ;  Adonis,  "  the 
Lord,"  etc.,  etc. 

This  general  statement  of  the  common 
failure  of  the  non-Shemitic  races  to  attain  such 
conceptions  of  the  Deity  as  the  Shemitic  terms 
for  God  express,  must  be  qualified  by  at  least 
two  or  three  conspicuous  exceptions.  Of  these, 
the  chief  are  the  old  Egyptian  Nutar,  as  a 
name  of  Deity,  meaning,  precisely,  "the 
Power,"  never  used  in  the  plural  number,1  and 
Nuk  pu  nuk,  nearly  equivalent  to  the  Hebrew 
Yahveh  ;  and  the  old  Magian  word,  Ahuramazda, 
"  the  All-knowing  Spirit."  Still  in  none  of 
these  cases  did  such  conceptions  ever  obtain 
that  exclusive  dominance  in  religion  as  in 
the  case  of  the  Shemitic  races. 

1  See  Renouf :  "Origin  and  Growth  of  Religion,"  pp.  98-100. 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  257 

Of  these  Shemitic  names  for  God,  such  as 
are  common  to  all  the  Shemitic  peoples  point 
back  distinctly  to  a  time  when  they  had  not 
yet  become  scattered,  and  in  their  primitive 
home  together  held  that  high  conception  of 
El,  or  flu,  God,  as  "  the  Mighty  One,"  or  Mohim, 
the  Supreme  Object  of  fear  and  worship.  In 
these  most  ancient  names  of  God  there  is 
nothing  to  suggest  that  they  at  first  denoted 
some  dead  ancestor,  or  a  ghost,  or  some  object 
in  physical  nature.  They  indicate  a  primitive 
monotheism,  and  that  of  a  high  ethical  type. 

But  was  this  Shemitic  monotheism  due 
merely  to  a  natural  and  ineffaceable  race-char- 
acteristic, in  virtue  of  which  they  alone,  so 
early  in  their  history,  found  their  way  up 
quickly  from  a  worship  of  nature,  of  ghosts 
or  fetishes,  to  the  exalted  conception  of  El 
Ely  on  ?  If  so,  then  we  should  expect  to  find 
evidence  of  this  tendency  in  the  historic  re- 
cords of  the  race.  Of  this,  however,  there  is 
no  evidence,  but,  instead,  of  the  contrary. 
Among  all  of  the  Shemitic  peoples  alike,  his- 
tory bears  witness  to  the  operation  of  the  same 


258      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

invincible  tendency  to  religious  degradation 
which  we  have  seen  to  exist  in  the  other 
great  branches  of  the  human  family. 

As  regards  the  early  Shemites  of  the  Euphra- 
tes valley,  when  they  first  come  before  us,  in  the 
reign  of  Sargon  I,  3750  B.C.,  they  are  already 
polytheists,  and  throughout  the  whole  thirty- 
one  hundred  years  of  Assyrian  history,  from 
Sargon  I  to  the  time  when  Shemitic  empire 
finally  went  down  under  Cyrus  the  Great, 
there  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  of  any  tendency 
to  monotheism.  Notwithstanding  the  many 
high-sounding  names  of  God  on  the  lips  of 
the  people,  bearing  silent  witness  to  the  pure 
faith  of  an  unrecorded  antiquity,  these  Euphra- 
tes Shemites  not  only  showed  the  same  ten- 
dency to  religious  degeneration  as  their  Indo- 
Gerinanic  and  Turanian  neighbours,  but  they 
exhibited  this  in  a  peculiarly  aggravated  form. 
Already,  when  in  prehistoric  times  the  clans 
who  peopled  Arabia  left  the  Shemitic  race- 
centre  in  the  Euphrates  valley,  they  appear 
to  have  carried  with  them  that  worship  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  which  we  find  prevailing  when 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  259 

authentic  Assyrian  history  opens  with  Sargon  I. 
As  for  the  section  of  the  race  which  wras  left 
behind,  it  was  their  evil  pre-eminence  over 
their  Akkadian  neighbours  that  in  their  con- 
ception of  God  they  emphasised  the  idea  of 
generation  over  that  of  creation,  and  first  in- 
troduced into  the  conception  of  the  Deity 
the  idea  of  sexual  distinction.  And  this, 
again,  became,  as  all  know,  the  most  prolific 
source  of  those  unutterable  abominations  per- 
petrated in  the  name  of  religion,  because  of 
which,  in  later  da}^s,  when  the  deadly  evil  had 
reached  Canaan,  God,  according  to  the  Heb- 
rew Scriptures,  not  without  just  reason,  com- 
manded the  Canaanites  to  be  extirpated  from 
the  earth. 

Thus  it  was  precisely  these  ancient  Shem- 
ites,  whose  religious  genius,  and  sublime  in- 
tuition of  the  one  God,  Renan  calls  upon  us 
to  admire,  who  debased  the  conception  of  God 
to  a  degree  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  had 
never  been  reached  before,  and  even  since  has 
been  never  exceeded.  It  was  their  infamous 
distinction  that  in  their  idolatrous  madness  they, 


260      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

first,  declared  the  most  atrocious  cruelties  and 
the  most  horrible  and  unnatural  lusts  to  be 
precisely  that  kind  of  service  with  which  Deity 
was  specially  pleased.  It  is  certainly  with 
abundant  reason  that  Ebrard  describes  this 
old  Shemitic  religion  as  "a  demoniac,  Satanic 
crime  against  the  innate  moral  lawr?  and  there- 
with a  fundamental  destruction  of  conscience, 
and  perversion  of  the  knowledge  of  God ;  "  l 
or,  more  vividly  still,  speaking  of  its  Phoenician 
development,  as  a  "  wilful  repetition  of  the  pri- 
meval fall,  —  a  fall  from  a  condition  of  simple 
sinfulness  into  a  diabolic,  demoniac  obduracy, 
—  an  infamous  revolt  against  God,  and  against 
conscience." 2  And  out  of  the  indescribable 
depths  of  that  polytheistic  nature-worship  into 
which  the  Euphrates  Shemites  so  early  sank, 
they  never  arose.  Among  them  we  search  in 
vain  for  any  trace  of  the  alleged  Shemitic 
tendency  to  a  pure  monotheistic  religion. 

With  the  Arabian  Shemites,  although,  so  far 
as  we  know,  they  never  descended  to  such  an 
abyss  of  religious  debasement  as  those  whom 

i  "  Apologetik,"  2  Bd.  §  173.  2  Ib.  §  177. 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM,  261 

they  left  behind  in  the  Euphrates  valley,  the 
case,  as  regards  our  argument,  was  not  essen- 
tially different.  Above  the  worship  of  nature  to 
which  they  early  gave  themselves,  through  four 
thousand  years  or  more,  they  never  rose.  Then, 
indeed,  Muhammed  appeared,  preaching  among 
them  the  almost  forgotten  truths  of  the  unity  and 
personality  of  God,  and  the  Arabians  followed 
him.  But  the  monotheism  of  Muhammed,  so 
far  as  one  can  judge  from  the  Quran  and  the 
Ahddis,  must  be  ascribed  in  a  great  degree  to 
Jewish  and  Christian  influence.  Nor  was  even 
he  able  wholly  to  eradicate  the  venerable  system 
of  idolatry  which  opposed  him  ;  but,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  famous  black  stone,  the  Kaaba  at 
Mecca,  he  was  constrained  to  allow  something 
to  remain  as  a  necessary  concession  to  the 
ancient  Shemitic  heathenism. 

Elsewhere  than  among  the  Arabian  Shemites 
shall  we  then  have  to  look,  for  that  monotheistic 
tendency  for  which  we  seek.  We  turn  last  of 
all  to  the  Hebrew  race.  Here,  at  least,  it  is 
insisted,  we  shall  find  one  brilliant  illustration 
of  that  natural  evolution  of  monotheistic  re- 


262       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

ligion  from  a  lower  form  of  faith,  for  which 
we  have  thus  far  sought  in  vain.  But  what 
are  the  facts  ?  Is  there  historical  evidence 
to  prove  that  the  Hebrews  were  distinguished 
from  other  branches  of  the  Shemitic  race  by 
a  natural  tendency  to  monotheism,  which  is 
the  sufficient  explanation  of  all  that  is  most 
distinctive  in  their  religious  history  ?  For  the 
answer  to  this  question,  we  must  inquire  of  the 
Hebrew  Scriptures.  We  appeal  to  them,  in 
this  instance,  not  as  inspired,  but  simply  as 
presenting  a  historical  record  of  the  Hebrew 
nation  from  the  days  before  Abraham  to  the 
end  of  the  Babylonian  captivity.  In  estimating 
the  value  of  this  testimony,  it  is  safe  to  assume, 
on  the  principles  which  govern  human  nature, 
that  the  writers  of  the  several  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  are  not  likely  to  have  given 
us  an  unduly  unfavourable  picture  of  the 
religious  history  of  their  nation.  If  a  large 
part  of  these  records  were  written  so  very  late 
as  the  modern  radical  criticism  supposes,  at 
a  time  when,  after  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
the  nation  as  a  whole  had  become  emancipated 


SIIEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  263 

from  polytheism  and  idolatry,  all  the  more  we 
should  be  led  to  anticipate  that,  through  a 
spirit  of  national  pride,  they  would  rather  be 
inclined  to  represent  the  religious  history  of 
the  nation  in  as  favourable  light  as  possible. 
In  view  of  this  consideration,  all  the  more 
significant  it  appears  that  the  Jewish  historians, 
with  one  accord,  should  have  represented  the 
religious  history  of  their  nation  in  very  dark 
colours.  Most  extraordinary,  in  the  light  of 
the  facts,  is  the  explanation  which  Renan  gives 
of  the  monotheism  imputed  to  Adam  and  Eve, 
that  with  the  Israelites  monotheism  was  "  such 
an  incontestable  truth "  that,  when  describing 
primitive  men,  they  "  could  only  imagine  them 
monotheists  "  !  Instead  of  finding  it  so  difficult 
thus  to  think  of  their  ancestors,  they  unani- 
mously represent  the  history  of  their  nation  and 
of  the  family  from  which  it  sprang,  as  from 
before  the  days  of  Abraham,  marked  by  an 
almost  invincible  tendency  to  lapse  into  the 
most  horrible  and  debasing  forms  of  polytheism 
and  idolatry.  In  this  respect,  they  were  no 
whit  better  than  their  heathen  neighbours. 


264       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

While  their  records  represent  Noah,  the  first 
ancestor  of  the  post-diluvian  peoples,  as  a 
believer  in  EloKim,  the  one  living  God,  we  are 
expressly  told  that  by  the  time  of  Terah,  2200 

g0 

B.C.,  and  we  know  not  how  long  before,  the 
ancestors  of  the  Israelitish  nation  were  wor- 
shippers of  other  gods.1  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  Abraham  himself,  living  as  he  did, 
in  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  at  that  time  the  chief 
seat  of  the  worship  of  Sin,  the  moon-god,  was 
brought  up  by  his  father  Terah  as  a  worshipper 
of  the  moon.  Nor  does  the  record  attribute 
the  change  which  came  over  Abraham  to  his 
religious  genius,  but  to  one  and  another  mani- 
festation of  that  Uu9  known  indeed  by  name 
to  his  Shemitic  neighbours,  but  worshipped  in 
that  day,  so  far  as  we  know,  by  none  around 
him.  Called  in  some  mysterious  way  by  God 
to  leave  the  idolatrous  surroundings  of  his  early 
life,  we  are  told  that  he  went  down,  under 
Divine  guidance,  into  Canaan,  where  the  iniquity 
of  the  Amorites  was  "not  yet  full,"  and  where 
still,  at  least  in  the  case  of  Melchizedek,  the 

1  Josh,  xxiv,  2. 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  265 

worship  of  El  Elyon,  the  Most  High  God, 
apparently  had  still  here  and  there  an  adherent ; 
and  there  made  his  home  until  his  death. 

But  if  monotheism,  under  the  extraordinary 
influence  of  this  patriarch,  continued  in  the 
line  of  his  immediate  posterity  until,  when 
Joseph  was  the  prime  minister  of  Pharaoh, 
they  went  down  into  Egypt,  yet  their  records 
state  that  their  descendants,  instead  of  advanc- 
ing to  the  more  perfect  knowledge  of  God, 
lapsed  readily  into  the  idolatry  of  their  heathen 
neighbours  ;  —  a  fact  which  is  attested  by  their 
ready  acceptance  of  the  worship  of  the  golden 
calf,  set  up  almost  as  soon  as  they  left  Egypt, 
at  Mount  Sinai,  in  imitation  of  the  Egyptian 
JLpis-worship.  Nor  did  the  remarkable  events 
of  the  Exodus  under  their  great  monotheistic 
leader,  hinder  the  Hebrews  from  persisting  in 
the  practice  of  their  polytheistic  idolatry  until 
that  whole  generation  had  perished  in  the 
wilderness. 

Nor  did  the  "  monotheistic  genius  "  yet  show 
itself  when  they  arrived  in  Canaan.  Com- 
manded to  exterminate  the  idolatrous  tribes 


266      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

whose  iniquities  had  then  come  to  the  full,  and 
under  no  circumstances  to  contract  alliances 
with  them,  we  learn  from  the  books  of  Joshua 
and  Judges  that  they  not  only  did  not  obey  this 
command,  but  through  the  days  of  the  judges 
they  found  the  surrounding  heathenism  so 
congenial  and  attractive,  that  they  again  and 
again  forsook  the  worship  of  the  one  living 
God  for  that  of  Baal,  Molech,  and  Ashtoreth. 
Under  the  kings,  the  same  inveterate  inclina- 
tion to  idolatry  continued  to  assert  itself.  If, 
under  David,  monotheism  reached  a  temporary 
ascendency,  yet,  by  the  end  of  Solomon's  reign, 
a  new  decline  from  the  worship  of  the  one  God 
began  to  appear;  and  in  the  reign  of  his  son 
Rehoboam,  with  the  secession  of  the  ten  tribes 
under  Jeroboam,  the  old  calf-worship  was  form- 
ally established  as  the  religion  of  the  new  state. 
From  that  time  onward  to  the  catastrophe 
under  Hoshea,  the  history  of  that  part  of  the 
Hebrew  nation  presents  one  unvarying  record 
of  an  abandonment,  ever  more  and  more  com- 
plete, of  the  worship  of  the  only  God  for  the 
cruel  and  licentious  worship  of  Baal  and  Ash- 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  267 

toreth,  and  other  of  the  old  Shemitic  nature- 
gods. 

Nor  did  Judah  as  a  people  prove  an  excep- 
tion to  this  law  of  religious  degeneration.  If 
now  and  then  monotheistic  kings,  supported  by 
fearless  prophets,  sought  to  bring  the  people 
back  to  the  sole  worship  of  Yahveh,  their  suc- 
cess was  only  temporary,  and,  as  Jeremiah 
charges,  unreal  and  superficial  while  it  lasted. 
And  so,  finally,  as  in  721  B.C.  the  kingdom  of 
the  ten  tribes  had  gone  down  under  Shalma- 
neser  of  Assyria,  in  588  B.C.  that  of  Judah  also 
fell,  under  Nebuchadnezzar  of  Babylon. 

Now  it  is  submitted  that  this  record  of  more 
than  fifteen  hundred  years  of  Hebrew  history, 
is  a  conclusive  refutation  of  the  supposition  that 
the  monotheism  which  at  last  asserted  itself  in 
Israel  can  be  rightly  attributed  to  a  racial  ten- 
dency, in  that  direction.  The  whole  history, 
from  the  days  of  Terah  and  Abraham,  bears 
unvarying  testimony  to  the  fact  that,  as  with 
other  branches  of  the  Shemitic  race,  so  with 
Israel,  the  race  tendency  was  not  toward  mono- 
theism, but  toward  a  polytheistic  nature-worship, 


268       GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

and  that  of  an  exceptionally  horrible  and  revolt- 
ing kind. 

We  may,  therefore,  without  hesitation,  affirm 
that  not  only  is  it  not  true  that  the  Shemitic 
people,  as  a  whole,  have  exhibited  a  peculiar 
monotheistic  genius,  and  have  thus  been  an  ex- 
ception to  the  world-wide  tendency  to  fall  away 
from  the  knowledge  and  worship  of  the  one 
living  God,  but  the  fact  is  the  reverse.  It  is 
just  the  Shemitic  race  who  have  furnished,  per- 
haps, one  of  the  most  appalling  illustrations  of 
this  law  of  human  nature  which  is  known  to 
history.  The  facts  of  their  history  bear  testi- 
mony to  a  special  race  proclivity  to  the  grossest 
and  most  debasing  forms  of  idolatry,  which  ap- 
pears only  the  more  impressive  and  significant 
when  we  recall  the  fact  that,  as  their  primitive 
names  for  God  reveal,  they  seem  at  first  to 
have  had  a  conception  of  the  Deity  so  much 
higher  than  that  which  is  revealed  by  such 
names  among  most  other  ancient  peoples. 

Of  the  non-Shemitic  races,  some,  indeed,  never 
fell  so  utterly  away  from  the  truth  concerning 
God  as  did,  especially,  those  Shemitic  inhabi- 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  269 

tants  of  the  Euphrates  valley ;  others,  indeed,  at 
last  reached  the  same  depths  of  religious  debase- 
ment ;  as  is  witnessed  in  the  incredibly  revolting 
ceremonial  of  the  Asioamedha,  or  horse-sacrifice 
of  ancient  India,  as  prescribed  in  the  Yajur 
Veda,  chap,  xxiii,  Mantra  18,  about  the  third 
century  B.C.,  or  in  the  unutterable  abomina- 
tions of  the  goat-worship  practised  at  Mendes 
in  Upper  Egypt.  But  these  all  reached  these 
uttermost  abysses  of  religious  corruption  more 
slowly.  It  was  the  peculiarity  of  the  religious 
development  of  the  Shemites,  whose  religious 
genius  Renan  so  extols,  that,  from  a  height 
in  the  beginning  so  much  above  other  nations, 
they  more  swiftly  than  any  others  descended 
to  a  debasement  of  the  idea  of  God  and  of 
his  worship,  such  as  many  other  races  never 
reached,  and  below  which,  probably,  no  race 
has  ever  yet  sunk.  No  one  who  is  familiar 
with  the  facts  will  wonder  at  the  remark  of 
Professor  Ebrard,  that  "  sin  in  its  highest  po- 
tency is  Shemitic  corruption." 

The    conclusion   from   this   is   evident.      An 
adequate  cause  of  the  development  of  the  He- 


270      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

brew  monotheism  cannot  be  found  in  the  Hebrew 
national  genius,  but  only,  as  the  Hebrew  rec- 
ords continually  assert,  in  the  supernatural  in- 
working,  in  individuals  of  that  selected  nation, 
of  the  Spirit  of  the  one  living  and  true  God. 
It  is  not  the  peculiar  glory  of  Israel,  more  than 
of  any  other  people,  that  by  their  own  excep- 
tional national  genius,  they  arrived  at  the  con- 
ception of  the  one  personal  God,  and  gave  it  to 
the  world.  Rather  is  it  the  glory  of  the  one 
God,  that,  notwithstanding  the  Shemitic-Hebrew 
tendency  to  the  grossest  polytheism  and  idol- 
atry, —  a  tendency  even  stronger  among  them 
than  among  the  Indo-Germanic  races,  —  He 
yet,  through  repeated  chastisements  and  un- 
deserved deliverances,  and  especially  by  rais- 
ing up  and  endowing  with  supernatural  gifts 
a  succession  of  witnesses  for  Himself  in  the 
midst  of  a  corrupt  nation,  brought  Israel, 
despite  itself,  to  show  forth  His  praise,  and  be- 
come, in  a  sense  solitary  and  unique  in  history, 
a  witness  for  Himself,  that  He,  Eloh\m,  and 
Jehovah,  the  Eloliim  of  Israel,  was  God  and 
none  else  beside  Him. 


SHEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  2*71 

And,  finally,  if  we  look  at  this  argument 
in  the  light  of  the  history  of  Israel  and  of 
the  church  from  the  return  from  Babylon  to  the 
present  time,  we  shall  find  that  it  appears  all 
the  more  conclusive.  For  —  not  to  speak  of 
the  prophets  —  it  is  quite  impossible  to  account 
for  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  in  the  light  of  this  history, 
as  the  consummate  product  of  religious  evolution 
in  Israel.  But  into  this  most  important  line  of 
argument  our  limits  forbid  us  to  enter.  We 
must  content  ourselves  with  affirming  that  the 
exception  to  the  general  law  of  religious  de- 
generation from  monotheistic  faith,  which  has 
been  asserted  in  the  case  of  the  Shemitic  race, 
and  especially  of  the  Hebrew  nation,  is  not 
established  by  the  facts  of  history. 

We  must,  therefore,  regard  the  fact  as  practi- 
cally universal,  that  mankind,  for  whatsoever 
reason,  exhibit  a  native  inclination,  more  or 
less  pronounced  in  all  races  and  all  ages,  to 
fall  away  from  monotheism,  wherever  it  has 
existed ;  on  the  theoretic  side  of  religion,  inclin- 
ing to  pantheism  or  materialism ;  on  the  prac- 
tical side,  into  creature-worship,  self-worship, 


272      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

and  various  forms  of  polytheism  and  idolatry. 
The  operation  of  this  innate  tendency  in  man 
has  now  and  then,  indeed,  been  interrupted  or 
retarded,  through  the  influence  of  commanding 
personalities,  proclaiming  anew  the  fundamental 
truths  of  religion ;  such  as  Zoroaster,  Moses, 
Isaiah,  or,  in  modern  times,  a  Huss  or  a  Luther. 
But  all  the  labours  of  such  witnesses  for  God, 
have  never  been  able  to  eradicate  this  tendency 
away  from  Him.  Even  Christianity  has  not 
been  exempt  from  this  law  of  religious  degrada- 
tion, but  in  most  lands  has  illustrated  the 
same  ancient  and  invincible  inclination  of  man- 
kind to  the  debasement  of  the  idea  of  God,  and 
the  worship  of  the  creature  more  than  the 
Creator. 

Finally,  we  affirm  that  the  fact  of  this  ten- 
dency, universally  exhibited  throughout  historic 
times,  is  utterly  irreconcilable  with  any  suppo- 
sition but  that  monotheism  was  the  original 
faith  of  man ;  and  that  all  other  forms  of  relig- 
ion and  philosophy  only  exhibit  various  lines 
of  declension  from  the  purity  of  the  primitive 
faith.  For  to  assert  the  opposite  hypothesis, 


SIIEMITIC    MONOTHEISM.  273 

and  make  monotheism  the  goal  of  the  develop- 
ment, involves  the  unwarranted  assumption  that 
the  law  of  the  order  of  religious  development 
in  prehistoric  times,  was  the  reverse  of  that 
which  has  prevailed  everywhere  throughout  the 
whole  historic  period.  The  assumption  takes 
for  granted  the  existence  of  a  native  tendency 
in  man  to  religious  elevation,  while  the  testi- 
mony of  history  exhibits  the  opposite  tendency 
as  a  fact  practically  universal.  Such  an  as- 
sumption condemns  in  advance  every  theory  of 
the  origin  and  growth  of  religion  which  is 
based  upon  it. 

We  venture,  therefore,  notwithstanding  the 
many  names  of  high  repute  which  may  be  cited 
on  the  other  side  of  this  question,  to  believe 
that  on  scientific  grounds  one  can  fully  justify 
the  biblical  representations  of  the  monotheism 
of  the  first  men,  and  of  the  origin  of  all  heath- 
enism, in  the  natural  aversion  of  all  sinful  men 
from  God ;  because  of  which  they  did  not  like 
to  retain  Him  in  their  knowledge,  and  therefore 
worshipped  and  served  the  creature  more  than 


274      GENESIS    AND    GROWTH    OF    RELIGION. 

the  Creator,  who  is  "  God  over  all,  blessed  for- 


ever." 


And,  last  of  all,  in  the  light  of  history,  we 
must  add  that  the  great,  unique  phenomenon  of 
the  Hebrew  monotheism,  as  a  conquering  power 
through  the  ages,  is  inexplicable  and  unaccount- 
able on  merely  natural  grounds.  No  adequate 
cause  for  it  can  be  found  in  Shemitic  nature  or 
in  Hebrew  genius.  It  only  receives  a  satisfying 
explanation  when  it  is  recognised  as  due,  even 
as  the  Holy  Scriptures  continually  assert,  to  the 
supernatural  grace  and  special  providence  of  the 
one  living  God,  working  redemptively  in  history 
through  chosen  individuals  of  a  chosen  race  and 
nation,  for  the  final  deliverance  of  our  fallen 
nature  from  the  supremacy  of  sin  and  the 
dominion  of  the  curse.  And  the  more  clearly 
that  we  see  this,  with  the  deeper  emotion  shall 
we  be  able  to  join  in  the  great  doxology  which 
the  contemplation  of  God's  dealings  with  the 
world  through  Israel,  brought  from  the  lips  of 
the  Apostle  Paul :  — 

"  0  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wis- 
dom and  the  knowledge  of  God !  How  un- 


SHEMIT1C    MONOTHEISM.  275 

searchable  are  his  judgments,  and  his  ways  past 
tracing  out !  For  of  Him,  and  through  Him, 
and  unto  Him,  are  all  things.  To  Him  be  the 
glory  forever.  Amen." 


BY    THE    SAME    AUTHOR. 

THE    LIGHT  OF  ASIA 
AND  THE    LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD. 

A  Comparison  of 

The  Legend,  the  Doctrine,  and  the  Ethics  of  the 

Buddha  with  the  Story,  the  Doctrine, 

and  the  Ethics  of  Christ. 

By  S.  H.  KELLOGG,  D.D.    Toronto.    $2.00. 


There  is  reason  to  believe  that  a  large  class  even  of  Christian 
people  have  a  most  exaggerated  idea  of  the  excellence  of  the 
great  non-christian  religions,  and  the  extent  to  which  their 
teachings  agree  with  those  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  This  re- 
mark applies  with  special  force  at  present  to  the  case  of  Bud- 
dhism, in  which,  for  various  reasons,  very  many  intelligent  people 
of  every  variety  of  religious  opinion  have  of  late  years  come  to 
feel  a  very  special  interest.  .  .  .  However  admirable  many 
things  in  the  Buddhist  and  other  ethnic  religions  may  seem  to 
some,  the  writer  himself  has  seen  too  much  of  the  practical 
working  of  these  heathen  systems  to  be  deeply  in  love  with 
them.  .  .  . 

That  such  mistaken  notions  as  to  the  relations  between  Chris- 
tianity and  Buddhism  widely  prevail,  is  often  forced  upon  our 
attention,  and  that  errors  on  this  subject  are  at  present  doing- 
no  little  mischief  in  unsettling  faith  and  misdirecting  practice 
is  scarcely  less  evident.  Observations  of  these  facts,  and  fre- 
quent conversations  with  men  in  different  parts  of  the  world 
who  have  had  special  opportunity  to  form  a  judgment  in  the 
matter,  have  led  the  writer  to  feel  that  there  might  be  room  for 
a  book  which  should,  in  a  more  thorough  and  systematic  way 
than  any  which  has  been  presented  to  our  notice,  deal  with  the 
various  questions  which  have  been  raised  with  regard  to  the  re- 
lations between  Buddhism  and  Christianity.  —  From  the  Preface. 


MACMILLAN   &   CO., 

112   FOURTH   AVENUE,   NEW   YORK. 
1 


THE    LIGHT  OF  ASIA 
AND  THE    LIGHT  OF   THE  WORLD. 

A  Comparison  of  the  Legend,  the  Doctrine,  and  the  Ethics 
of  the  Buddha  with  the  Story,  the  Doctrine,  and  the 
Ethics  of  Christ.  By  S.  H.  KELLOGG,  D.D.  $2.00. 


CONTENTS. 


PREFACE. 
NOTES. 

CHAPTER  I. 
Buddhism  and  Modern  Unbelief. 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Comparative  Historical  Value 
of  the  Buddhist  and  the 
Christian  Scriptures. 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Life  and  the  Legend  of  the 
Buddha. 

1.  The  Life. 

2.  The  Legend. 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Legend  of  the  Buddha  and  the 
Story  of  the  Christ. 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Doctrine  of  the  Buddha  and 
the  Doctrine  of  the  Christ. 

1.  Introductory. 

2.  The  Doctrine  concerning  God. 


3.  The  Doctrine  concerning  Man. 

4.  The  Doctrine  concerning  Sin. 

5.  The  Doctrine  concerning  Sal- 

vation. 

G.  The  Doctrine  concerning  the 
Last  Things. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Buddhist  Ethics  and  the  Ethics  of 
the  Gospel. 

1.  Excellencies    of    Bud  d  hist 

Ethics. 

2.  The  Postulates  of  the  Two  Sys- 

tems. 

3.  Law  in  the  Two  Systems. 

4.  The  Motives  in  the  Two  Sys- 

tems. 

5.  Practical  Working  in  the  Two 

Systems. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Ketrospect  and  Conclusion. 
Index  of  Topics. 


"  There  is  no  other  hook  in  the  English  language  which  fills  exactly 
the  place  of  this  hook,  and  the  American  reader  will  appreciate  Pro- 
fessor Kellogg's  important  work  none  the  less  because  it  comes  from  an 
American  scholar  rather  than  from  a  German  or  an  English  one."- 
Sunday-School  Times. 

"  There  is  no  subject  as  to  which  the  public  have  been  made  the 
victims  of  so  much  poor  sentimentalism  as  in  the  talk  about  Buddhism 
which  has  grown  into  a  fashion  since  Mr.  Arnold  gave  us  his  poem."  - 
Independent.  

MACMILLAN  &  CO., 

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THE  SOTERIOLOGY  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

By  William  Porcher  DuBose,  M.A.,  S.T.D.,  Professor  of  Exegesis  in 
the  University  of  the  South.     12rao,  $1.50. 

This  is  a  re-examination  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  Salva- 
tion in  the  light  of  the  facts  of  human  nature  and  of  the  teach- 
ing of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  in  no  sense  polemical,  neither 
advocating  nor  combating  any  special  theory  of  the  Atonement. 
It  is  a  candid  study  of  the  question  de  novo,  conducted  with 
some  degree  of  independence  of  the  letter,  but  with  devout  and 
thorough  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  Catholic  thought  on  the 
subject. 

In  its  general  scope  it  deals  with  (1)  the  nature  and  meaning 
of  "Salvation,"  (2)  the  work  of  salvation  as  actually  accom- 
plished for  humanity  by  the  Son  of  Man,  and  (3)  the  means  of 
Salvation  in  the  positive  institutions  of  the  Gospel. 

The  work  as  a  whole  is  a  fresh,  and  to  some  extent  novel, 
presentation  of  a  great  subject  which,  while  necessarily  old, 
must  nevertheless  be  always  new. 


"...  The  Church  owes  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude  to  Dr.  DuBose  for 
bringing  out  into  clear  light  the  New  Testament  meaning  of  the  word 
[salvation].  Its  devout  spiritual  tone  and  earnestness  will  lead  many 
readers  to  more  honest  and  real  thoughts  of  the  meaning  of  salvation, 
whilst  its  original  and  fresh  treatment  of  certain  aspects  of  great 
theological  mysteries  will  stimulate  thought.  .  .  .  The  spirit  in  which 
Dr.  DuBose  has  undertaken  his  task  cannot  be  improved  upon.  .  .  . 
The  style  and  expression  also  are  alike  admirable."  —  Churchman. 

"It  is  a  great  satisfaction  to  take  up  a  thoroughly  made  book  like 
this,  with  the  entire  plan  laid  out,  and  every  part  complete  and  fitted 
to  its  place.  ...  He  takes  hold  of  his  subject  with  a  firm,  manly 
grasp,  and  discusses  it  vigorously.  ...  We  find  Dr.  DuBose  eminently 
suggestive;  a  strong,  intelligent,  and  honest  reasouer,  who  grapples 
manfully  with  the  difficulties  of  the  subject,  and  is  always  to  be  read 
both  with  respectful  attention  and  with  profit."  —  Independent. 

"The  work  is  scholarly,  clear,  and  able."  —  Boston  Traveller. 


MACMILLAN   &   CO., 

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JUST    PUBLISHED.     12mo.     $1.50. 


THE   CENTRAL   TEACHING 


OF 


JESUS    CHRIST. 


A  STUDY  AND  EXPOSITION 

Of  the  Five  Chapters  of  the  Gospel  According  to 

St.  John,  xiii.  to  xvii.  Inclusive. 


THOMAS  DEHANY  BERNARD,  M.A., 

Canon  and  Chancellor  of  Wells, 

AUTHOR  or 

THE  PROGRESS  OF  DOCTRINE  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 
BAMPTON  LECTURES,  1864. 


...  In  ranging  through  the  literature  of  the  subject,  I  did 
not  find  that  there  is  any  book  which  does  precisely  what  is 
here  intended.  Certainly  the  student  has  abundant  aids,  both 
exegetical  and  homiletical.  .  .  .  But  I  doubt  whether  there  is 
any  one  book  which  at  once  covers  the  ground  and  is  conter- 
minous with  it;  one  that  treats  it  as  a  whole  in  itself,  in  the 
way  both  of  interpretation  and  reflection.  If  there  be  no  such 
book,  it  is  fit  that  there  should  be  one,  and  of  a  kind  suited  for 
reading  rather  than  for  reference.  Under  this  impression  I 
applied  myself  more  willingly  to  a  task  which  did  not  appear 
to  be  superfluous.  —  From  the  Preface. 


MACMILLAN   &  CO., 

112  FOURTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 
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Just  Published.     i2mo.    $1.75. 


Rev.  Professor  H.  E.  Ryle. 

The  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament.  An  Essay  on  the 
Growth  and  Formation  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  Scrip- 
ture. By  H.  E.  RYLE,  M.A.,  Hulsean  Professor  of  Divin- 
ity, Cambridge.  i2mo.  $1.75. 

"  This  volume  is  remarkable  in  two  ways.  It  is  written  by  one  of  the 
new  men  at  Cambridge  (England),  one  of  the  divines  who  have  been 
trained  under  Bishop  Westcott  and  Dr.  Hort,  and  who  is  full  of  the 
reverent  spirit  with  which  the  Bible  is  now  critically  studied  by  leading 
English  scholars. 

"  The  other  point  of  note  is,  that  conclusions  of  critical  scholarship 
are  here  accepted,  and  freely  applied  to  the  explanation  of  the  Scriptures 
and  the  determination  of  the  way  in  which  these  writings  were  gradu- 
ally put  together  and  made  to  form  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  Scripture.  .  .  . 

"  We  cannot  too  highly  praise  Professor  Ryle's  courage  in  writing  this 
book  or  his  serious  and  candid  and  honest  purpose  in  keeping,  as  far 
as  possible,  out  of  the  range  of  speculations  and  dealing  with  plain 
matters  of  scholarship  and  of  fact. 

"  He  has  not  published  a  mass  of  undigested  materials,  but  has 
brought  them  together  and  digested  them  so  thoroughly  that  any  candid 
mind  can  use  his  work  and  follow  him  in  his  efforts  to  trace  the  gradual 
growth  and  the  formation  of  the  Hebrew  Canon  of  Scripture. 

"  It  is  an  immense  gain  to  have  this  work  done  in  a  popular  form, 
not  by  a  radical  scholar,  whose  aim  is  mainly  critical  and  destructive, 
but  by  a  man  who  is  thoroughly  reverent  in  his  spirit  and  candid  and 
honest  in  his  scholarship. 

"  This  is  the  first  popular  and  satisfactory  book  on  the  Old  Testament 
which  can  be  put  into  the  hands  of  an  intelligent  layman,  with  the 
satisfaction  that  it  will  lead  him,  not  to  set  aside  the  Bible  as  a  book 
that  has  no  message  for  him,  but  to  deeper  and  more  profound  respect 
for  its  contents,  and  to  a  desire  to  go  far  more  thoroughly  into  such 
knowledge  of  the  truth  as  these  sacred  writings  show  the  Hebrew 
people  to  have  possessed. 

"  It  is  a  notable  day  when  English  biblical  scholarship  produces  a 
book  of  this  kind. 

"  It  is  right  to  add  that,  while  it  is  within  the  reach  of  the  ordinary 
man,  it  is  equipped  with  scholarly  apparatus  which  will  satisfy  the 
demands  of  our  ablest  scholars."  —  Simday  Herald,  Boston. 


MACMILLAN   &  CO., 

112  FOURTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


NEW   THEOLOGICAL   BOOKS. 

ALEXANDER. —The  Leading  Ideas  of  the  Gospels. 

By  the  Right  Rev.  WILLIAM  ALEXANDER,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Derry  and  Raphoe.  New  Edition,  revised  and  enlarged. 
pp.  xxxii,  332.  Crown  8vo.  #1.75. 

THE  Bishop  of  Derry  explains  in  the  Preface  to  this  new  edition  that 
"  this  volume,  in  its  present  shape,  is  rather  a  new  book  than  a  new 
edition.  ...  In  addition  to  revision  of  the  original  matter,  several 
important  additions  have  been  made  :  (i)  The  conception  of  Leading 
Ideas  in  the  Gospels  has  been  carefully  guarded,  and  discriminated 
from  the  extravagant  application  of  it  which  might  make  the  evange- 
lists appear  to  be  romantic  idealogists;  (2)  the  study  of  St.  Luke's 
Gospel  has  been  specially  enlarged,  and  a  principle  of  division  adopted 
(from  the  circumstances  of  his  life;  from  his  special  training;  from  his 
natural  endowments)  which  seems  adapted  to  dealing  with  his  Leading 
Ideas.  The  subject  of  St.  Luke's  alleged  Ebionitism  has  also  been  care- 
fully examined;  the  most  sacred  portion  of  a  narrative  where  all  is  sacred 
—  the  record  of  the  Passion  —  has  been  elucidated  by  the  Leading  Ideas 
of  the  evangelist.  A  synopsis  has  been  prefixed,  and  an  index  appended." 

"  The  work  in  this  issue  has  been  so  altered  in  revisal  and  so  greatly 
enlarged  as  to  be  a  new  book,  in  which  the  doctrine  formerly  set  forth  in  a 
series  of  sermons  has  been  developed  into  a  well-reasoned  theological 
treatise."  —  Scotsman. 

MILLIGAN.  —  The  Ascension  and  Heavenly  Priest- 
hood of  our  Lord.  By  WILLIAM  MILLIGAN,  D.D.,  Pro- 
fessor of  Divinity  and  Biblical  Criticism  in  the  University 
of  Aberdeen.  i2mo.  $2.25. 

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The  Religious  Systems  of  the  World.  A  Contribution  to 
the  Study  of  Comparative  Religion.  8vo.  Cloth.  $4.50. 
Among  the  fifty-four  contributors  are  Canon  RAWLIN- 
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LL.D.,  OSCAR  BROWNING,  M.A.,  Canon  SHUTTLEWORTH, 
J.  ALLANSON  PICTON,  M.A.,  M.P.,  Rev.  DAVID  FOTHERING- 
HAM,  Sir  FRED.  POLLOCK,  FREDERIC  HARRISON,  etc. 

"  It  is  an  interesting  and  valuable  volume  both  for  the  theologian  and  the 
general  reader.  It  is  almost  an  encyclopaedia  of  the  religions  of  the  world." 
—  Christian  Union. 

MACMILLAN   &   CO., 

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NEW   THEOLOGICAL   BOOKS. 
Hew  and  Cheaper  Edition. 

Life  of  Archibald  Campbell  Tait,  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury. By  RANDALL  THOMAS  DAVIDSON,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Rochester,  late  Dean  of  Windsor,  and  WILLIAM  BENHAM,  B.D., 
Hon.  Canon  of  Canterbury.  Third  Edition.  Crown  8vo.  $4.00. 

"  The  book  is  valuable  and  interesting,  because  for  the  tirst  time  it  gives 
us  a  clear  and  authoritative  account  of  the  manner  in  which  Tait  impressed 
his  own  character  upon  the  Church  history  of  his  time.  How  strong  he 
was,  and  with  what  effect  he  worked  as  a  moderating  force  between  clamour- 
ing and  violent  extremes,  will  now  be  fully  understood  for  the  first  time."  — 
Times. 

"  It  is  an  admirable  biography  in  many  ways,  and  it  contains  some  very 
important  contributions  to  the  political  history  of  our  time.  Every  man 
who  appreciates  the  vast  and  legitimate  influence  which  the  Church  of 
England  exercises  over  the  thought  and  the  polity  of  our  time  will  read  it 
carefully.  .  .  .  The  book  is  written  with  studious  care  and  sufficient  deft- 
ness. No  moderate  churchman  can  read  it  without  being  convinced  that, 
both  as  Bishop  of  London  and  as  Primate,  Tait  did  work  which  has  had 
the  happiest  results."  —  St.  James  s  Gazette. 

New  and  Cheaper  Edition.    Uniform  with  the  Collected  Edition  of  Dean 
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